Jim Burklo’s Musings
We sat in the sunken courtyard of the United University Church at USC in Los Angeles yesterday, basking in the sun under a bough of carmine bougainvillea, noshing on a delicious lunch of kichari dosed with almond dressing served outdoors by our Good Karma Cafe.
“Since giving up God, I enjoy things for themselves, in the moment, more than ever. Not thinking about the biblical past or about a future eschaton frees me up to enjoy this food, here and now,” said Ryan Bell. The Reverend Ryan Bell, that is.
Almost exactly a year ago, he lost his job as the up-and-coming pastor of the up-and-coming Hollywood Seventh-Day Adventist Church. His support for gay marriage was just the tip of the denominational iceberg that smashed a hole in his career. In recent years, the formerly decentralized SDA has imposed a heavy-handed, biblical-literalist dogma on its pastors.
