{"id":12951,"date":"2026-02-02T21:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T02:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/?p=12951"},"modified":"2026-02-07T22:18:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T03:18:42","slug":"wayside-pulpit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/2026\/02\/wayside-pulpit\/","title":{"rendered":"Wayside Pulpit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Tracey got a comic zine for me at a recent comic convention. Drawn and written by Sanika Phwade \u2014 who bills herself as &#8220;an illustrator, cartoonist, and reportage artist&#8221; \u2014 it tells about a minister who has fun with the signboard outside her church. The zine opens with the words: &#8220;Pastor Jamie Washam changes the sign outside the First Baptist Church in America every week.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_2239-768x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12952\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_2239-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_2239-225x300.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_2239-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_2239-1200x1600.jpeg 1200w, https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_2239.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The cover of Sanika Phwade&#8217;s comic zine about Rev. Jamie Washam&#8217;s signboard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Phwade, by putting short aphorisms on the signboard, Rev. Washam is continuing the tradition of her predecessor: &#8220;He would call it <em>The Wayside Pulpit<\/em> \u2014 that preaches a sermon to whomever is passing by. I love that! But I also like having fun with these.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the keeper of the Wayside Pulpit outside our meetinghouse, I was jealous when I learned that people actually talk to Washam about the things she puts in her Wayside Pulpit. But then, her Wayside Pulpit is edgier than ours is. I put up sayings like &#8220;The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.&#8221; No one comments on things like that.  When Washam put up the phrase, &#8220;God Is Non-Binary,&#8221; <em>sixteen people<\/em> made comments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-dark-red-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8643c783684f008855489e689ac77cc6\">&#8220;I have learned that it is the same signs that evoke both positive and negative reactions in people. Fifteen have said positive things about &#8216;God Is Non-Binary,&#8217; and one person said, Hey what are you thinking? And I said well, let&#8217;s sit down and read genesis together. Because the text does support that. They thought I was just popping off politically, and yes I totally picked that up from Pride Fest. But it is completely substantiated by the text.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Genesis 1:27 does in fact say, &#8220;So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.&#8221; That is, both male and female are created in God&#8217;s image, which implies that God is (ahem) non-binary. Oh ye of little faith who try to place limits on God, limiting him to one gender (regardless of the pronouns we humans use to describe him).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tracey got a comic zine for me at a recent comic convention. Drawn and written by Sanika Phwade \u2014 who bills herself as &#8220;an illustrator, cartoonist, and reportage artist&#8221; \u2014 it tells about a minister who has fun with the signboard outside her church. The zine opens with the words: &#8220;Pastor Jamie Washam changes the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/2026\/02\/wayside-pulpit\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Wayside Pulpit&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1198],"class_list":["post-12951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-wayside-pulpit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12951"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13114,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12951\/revisions\/13114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}