Good stuff here by Debra Dean Murphy, especially this quote from Garrett Keizer: I am unable to commit to any messiah who doesn’t knock over tables.
I know well the pressure the be perennially nice in church–and the fear that if I wasn’t always nice, I would jeopardize my ministry career. Looking back, I have too lengthy a list of times that I wanted to stand up and fight for some righteous cause, or do some much-needed rebuking, but smiled and nodded and said, “well, there’s another way to see that.” On rare occasions, “there’s another way to see that” does the job, but sometimes I failed to do what I was called to do by not knocking over any tables.