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October 2022

October 16, 2022

Mapping Ghosts and Believing Things that Aren’t True

Over the years that I have been writing this blog, those who describe themselves as...

October 09, 2022

We Don’t Need to Protect God

Human beings never behave so badly as when they believe they are protecting God. Barbara Brown...

October 04, 2022

Persons, Humans, and Souls

What it means to be a person, and how that is different than being human,...

October 01, 2022

Having the Faith of a Weed

In today's gospel reading from Luke, Jesus' disciples make a very simple request: "Increase our...

September 2022

September 22, 2022

Autumn Peace is a Choice

Today is the first day of autumn. For those who love autumn as I do,...

September 20, 2022

Some Stories are Not Redemptive. But They All are Important

The first reading assignment in my General Ethics class this semester was Kate Jennings’ 2002...

September 18, 2022

How Many of Your Gods are Dead?

One of my greatest joys as a philosophy professor is that I get to be...

September 15, 2022

This Book Changed My Life: Kathleen Norris’ “The Cloister Walk”

I asked my Facebook friends at the beginning of the summer to list three or...

September 13, 2022

When Atheism Turns Evangelical

An evangelical Christian and an atheist got into an argument recently on this blog's Facebook...

September 07, 2022

What Does the Bible Say about _____________?

In an interview with CNN a few years ago, Barbara Brown Taylor said something that...

September 05, 2022

What Does the Lord Require of Us? A Labor Day Reflection

There are a couple of sayings attributed to Jesus that Christians often use when attempting...

August 2022

August 27, 2022

What the Wounds on Jesus’ Resurrected Body Tell Us

I consider myself to be well informed and well read, but every once in a...

August 25, 2022

Anniversary Week for “Freelance Christianity”: Here’s the #1 post in the past decade

This week marks the tenth anniversary of this blog--hard to believe! It has been on...

August 22, 2022

Anniversary Week for “Freelance Christianity”: Here’s the #2 post in the past decade

This week marks the tenth anniversary of this blog--hard to believe! It has been on...

August 20, 2022

Something More Powerful than Our Virtues

One of the habits that having a puppy in the house for the past ten...

August 18, 2022

Die Before You Die

For many, the raising of Lazarus is Jesus' signature miracle, even though it is only...

August 11, 2022

Jesus Taught Us How To Be Human

Jeanne asked me a question about my blog the other day that, after I stopped...

July 2022

July 30, 2022

Some Crooked Things Don’t Need to be Made Straight

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

July 27, 2022

The Shy Deer-Soul Inside of You

As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O...

July 23, 2022

Negotiating with God

I have the privilege of giving the sermon today at Trinity Episcopal Church in Pawtuxet,...

July 18, 2022

Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream

I’ve been thinking a lot about end of life issues lately. Really. They seem to...

July 14, 2022

Some Things Repair Themselves, and Some Things Do Not

My recently concluded crappy month of June ended with a minor fender-bender, the result of...

July 11, 2022

My Neighbor May Not Be the Person I Think It Is

I recently found myself in the midst of a Facebook discussion, the sort of online...

July 09, 2022

What They Don’t Tell Us About Wisdom–Part Two

A couple of weeks ago I posted an essay called “What They Don’t Tell Us...

July 07, 2022

Descending and Ascending the Mountain of the Lord

Facebook reminded me that eight years ago I was on retreat at the New Camoldoli...

July 05, 2022

When People of Good Faith have Incompatible First Principles on the Abortion Issue

I had an unusually positive experience a couple of days ago—amazingly enough, it was in...

July 02, 2022

On Independence Day, Be Glad that the United States is Not a Christian Nation

Christianity, or any branch of it, loses its Christian character when its self-proclaimed supporters outnumber...

June 2022

June 30, 2022

Cassidy Hutchinson and a Story from Ancient Syria

Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony before the January 6th Select Committee last Tuesday was both powerful and...

June 25, 2022

Why Christians Should Care About Their Bodies

In last Thursday's blog post, I wrote about how the problematic philosophical theory of dualism...

June 23, 2022

Problems with the Soul

Last week I posted an essay called “Left-Brain Christianity or Right-Brain Faith?” which discussed the...

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