This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. I know many of you, similar to me, likely enjoyed the traditional three-day weekend which ends summer each year. I’m always struck, though, that despite the common (and important!) refrain to “remember the reason” for the Memorial Day holiday each year, there is rarely ...
Sep 06, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. My first position as a priest was at historic Christ Church Episcopal in Alexandria, Virginia. Our nation's first president, George Washington, served on the vestry of this church and his family had their own box pew that they would sit in during worship. And so, over t...
Aug 16, 2022•4 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. I’m aware, sometimes, that I give the impression that my own church, The Episcopal Church, is a place of perfect peace, love, and joy—celebrating the full inclusion of all the baptized, including our LGBTQIA+ members as we live in beautiful unity. And while it is true t...
Aug 02, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. One of the strangest and, unfortunately, most common ways of trying to convert someone to the Christian faith is telling them that unless they convert to Christianity, they are going to go to hell. If we can bracket for just a moment whether or not that sort of an idea ...
Jul 27, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. Sometimes people come to me as a priest, telling me that they are having trouble finding God in their life. One of the best pathways I have for them is to start spending time around the poor. Help out in our church’s Loving Spoonfuls Meal Ministry. Try spending time wit...
Jul 20, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. This past week, on Sunday, June 26, my congregation hosted our second annual Pride worship service, held the last Sunday in Pride month to celebrate all God’s beloved children, no matter their sexuality or gender identity. I spoke at that service about what freedom mean...
Jun 29, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. We’ve all had around a week to process it, but I know many of you are still reeling from the horror of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Two dead teachers. Nineteen dead elementary school children. As I read of how the gunman locked himself in a classroom with those...
Jun 01, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. As we head toward the Memorial Day holiday, for many people it means the unofficial start of summer. Grills get uncovered, pools opened up, and many of us prepare for another beautiful summer by the gorgeous Lake Michigan shoreline. I will admit that I’m not always grat...
May 25, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. For the first couple weeks of May, our church, St. John’s Episcopal here in Grand Haven, ran a targeted Facebook ad with a survey aimed at people who are not connected to a faith community. We wanted to know what things would be important to them, were they to want to b...
May 18, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. Last week I talked about some of the Scriptural and theological reasons why there is room for a nuanced view of abortion in Christianity. Having been raised with strict views on this question, I know I was surprised to learn in graduate school that there was room to thi...
May 11, 2022•6 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. Like many of you, I was shocked to read the draft decision from the conservative majority of the United States Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade and transforming this fundamental question of women’s healthcare, the very right of a woman to control what happens to ...
May 04, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. Today, as the church moves through Holy Week and approaches Easter Sunday, there is a tendency sometimes for Christianity to turn inward. And so, whether you are hearing this on Wednesday in Holy Week or on Easter Sunday, I want to take a moment to talk about how I thin...
Apr 13, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. You and I live in an age and in a time when bodies of water are admired and enjoyed. Very rarely are they feared or seen as uncrossable boundaries. Of course, this does not apply for those of us who live in the Grand Haven area and have tried to cross the bridge from th...
Apr 06, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. It has been beautiful, absolutely beautiful, to see the worldwide outpouring of support for the Ukrainian people, particularly those who are fleeing Putin’s war into other Eastern European countries. Over the past few weeks, though, I’ve also seen a handful of posts on ...
Mar 30, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. I mentioned last week how during Lent, members of my parish are reading the book The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus by Fleming Rutledge. The discussion from earlier this week, on her chapter on Apocalyptic War, underscored for me how very misunderstood th...
Mar 23, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. During Lent, members of my parish are reading the book The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus by Fleming Rutledge. It’s a very good book, hefty at around six hundred pages, but well worth the time. We’re doing selections from the book each week, knowing that ...
Mar 16, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. I believe one of the most profound challenges facing Christianity, facing our society in America right now, is a misunderstanding of the fundamental ideals that should guide us. I see this particularly in the ideal and virtue of freedom. Of course, in one sense our coun...
Mar 02, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. In last week’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, I talked about the dangers fascism poses to our country right now, including where I live here in Grand Haven, MI. I talked about how Christians are increasingly comfortable with fascist perspectives and ideology, somethi...
Feb 23, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. One of the unfortunate difficulties of the past couple of years is that language has become increasingly polarized and manipulated, with people claiming certain words and concepts mean things that are absolutely divorced from reality. It’s like Humpty Dumpty talking to ...
Feb 16, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. Like many of you, I’ve been watching the escalating events in Ukraine and Russia with a fair amount of anxiety. Russian President Vladimir Putin is demanding several things, including a promise for NATO never to expand eastward to countries like Ukraine. Tens of thousan...
Feb 02, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. This past Sunday, one of the appointed Scripture readings in the lectionary cycle of our church was from the book of Nehemiah. The Hebrew Bible has been a love of mine since my undergraduate major of Biblical Studies. It currently fuels my Monday Night Introduction to t...
Jan 26, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. At my congregation we have a tradition on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day that we’ve kept for several years now. We invite people to sign up to read from his sermons, letters, and other writings, with half-hour shifts all day long from 9am until 7pm. Members of the communi...
Jan 19, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. Let’s talk about weed. Yep, just when you thought your local progressive pastor couldn’t move any farther to the left. Here I am. Now, I bring this question up because of a local medicinal facility in our own community here in Grand Haven, New Standard. They are asking ...
Jan 05, 2022•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. As the church continues walking through the Twelve Days of Christmas (yes, despite what you may assume, given the number of Christmas Trees already thrown to the street for recycling, we are still in the midst of Christmas), much of the world has turned its sight toward...
Dec 29, 2021•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. In his Christmas Message, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, drew our attention to a campaign that our church put out in the late 1930s. Refugees were fleeing tyranny, evil, injustice, bigotry, and hatred in Europe in the lead-up to World War I...
Dec 22, 2021•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. The United States Supreme Court has decided to let stand an abortion law in Texas which bans abortion after six weeks and allows any private citizen to sue a doctor or other individual helping someone get an abortion. The Court did agree that abortion providers could su...
Dec 15, 2021•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. Like many of you, I’m sure, I was distraught to hear the news of the shooting at Oxford High School in southeastern Michigan. That school is actually not far from Rochester University, where I did my undergraduate studies, and I have several friends who are alumna. My h...
Dec 08, 2021•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… According to stores, Christmas has been almost here since before Halloween. But for many families, the first weekend after Thanksgiving marks the true beginning of the holiday season. I know I talked my wife into beginning ou...
Dec 01, 2021•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. It’s Thanksgiving week, a time set aside each year to gather with family and friends and give thanks for the blessings of life. With the lockdown of last year, many chose to stay home for Thanksgiving, celebrating in smaller and safer gatherings. COVID-19 numbers in Mic...
Nov 24, 2021•5 min
This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. As I write this week’s episode, deliberations have just begun in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse for homicide in the deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, along with the gunshot injury to Gaige Grosskreutz. Alongside of Rittenhouse’s trial, we have been watching t...
Nov 17, 2021•5 min
