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July 2018

July 26, 2018

The Never-Ending Prayer

As I do initial work on my new book on prayer (contract now signed!), I...

July 22, 2018

Don’t Be Afraid

I had the opportunity to spend two hours with a young man named Hayden Bruce...

July 10, 2018

God’s Works Are as Good as We Make Them

God would have us know that we must live as people who manage our lives...

July 08, 2018

God is Just a Story (and so are we)

Although the name of this blog is “Freelance Christianity,” and it is published on Patheos’...

July 05, 2018

To Whom Do You Belong?

A couple of years ago, my college celebrated its centennial. For Jeanne and me, the...

July 03, 2018

All Things Shall Be Well?

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall...

July 01, 2018

Prayer for People Who Don’t Believe in God

Last week I contracted with a publisher to write a book on prayer--the working title...

June 2018

June 28, 2018

Does Everything Work Together for Good?

Jeanne and I recently had the opportunity to see a local community theater’s production of...

June 21, 2018

This is What You are Afraid of

Frederick Buechner says that vocation is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s...

June 19, 2018

Be Careful What You Vote For

An annual musical fixture of my Baptist upbringing was the Easter Cantata. Each year on...

June 17, 2018

When to Be Skeptical, and When to Believe

Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the...

June 12, 2018

The God of History is an Atheist

Atheism is a purification Simone Weil Former President Obama loved to quote a hopeful statement from...

June 10, 2018

What Do You Do When No One Is Watching?

Hey Justin! What if you had a ring that made you invisible when you put...

May 2018

May 22, 2018

Why the Liberal Arts Matter

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning historian David McCullough was the speaker at Providence College's Commencement exercises...

May 19, 2018

We Need to Stop Saying “Our Thoughts and Prayers are With You.” It Doesn’t Help.

So here we are again. Another school shooting, immediately followed by another avalanche of "our...

May 10, 2018

The Crooked Timber of Faith

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made. Immanuel Kant...

May 06, 2018

What Christians Get Wrong About Jesus

Historical Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion ....

May 03, 2018

One Nation, Under God?

I was invited earlier this week by an online publication that I write for occasionally...

May 01, 2018

Taking a Moral Holiday

So here we are, a year and a half since Donald Trump was elected President....

April 2018

April 24, 2018

The A$$hole Saint

I come from a hardcore Protestant world, a world in which we did not do...

April 12, 2018

Just the Facts

I drove past a billboard not long ago that raised my blood pressure a bit....

April 10, 2018

Moral Apocalypse

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. Shakespeare, King Lear This week,...

April 08, 2018

There Was Not a Needy Person Among Them . . .

A couple of days ago, the following from Franklin Graham came across my Twitter feed:...

March 2018

March 27, 2018

A Holy Week Reflection: Why Doctrine and Faith Don’t Mix

Holy Week is upon us once again—as good a time as any to step back...

March 25, 2018

The Feather of Grace, or How To Keep Donald Trump and Evangelical Christians From Corrupting Your Faith

At its best, faith is the overflow of gratitude, the attempt to live as if...

March 22, 2018

Morality By The Skin Of Your Teeth

Any caring human being asks the question What is the right thing to do? on...

March 18, 2018

There Is A God, But I Do Not Believe In HIm

God would have us know that we must live as people who manage our lives...

March 15, 2018

The Christian Faith In a Nutshell

Sports fans old enough to remember the 70s and 80s will recall that a regular...

March 13, 2018

Dr. Seuss, an Unborn Child, and Why Each Of Us Matters

Dr. Seuss was a regular in our house when my sons were young—my thirty-something sons...

March 11, 2018

Childish or Childlike?

One of stories that was emphasized regularly in the Baptist Sunday school of my youth...

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