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October 2022

October 18, 2022

How is your Optimism Doing These Days?

A few weeks ago in the interdisciplinary Honors course that I am team-teaching in this...

September 2022

September 13, 2022

When Atheism Turns Evangelical

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

September 01, 2022

Abortion and Faith Discussions: Begin How You Want It To End

I wrote this essay while I was on retreat in early July but, for reasons...

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...

June 2022

June 19, 2022

What To Do When It Isn’t Working

What do you do when it just isn’t working? In the life of a teacher,...

May 2022

May 26, 2022

Swallowing the Mystery

In her wonderful memoir Take This Bread, Sara Miles tells us of a conversation she had...

April 2022

April 24, 2022

A Human Being Having a Divine Experience

Two decades ago, as my mother-in-law was steadily descending into the hell of Alzheimer’s, an...

April 16, 2022

Taking Death for a Walk: A Holy Saturday Reflection

A thing about dying is that you can't consult anyone who has done it. Peter...

March 2022

March 31, 2022

Jesus on April Fools Day

I know it's the middle of Lent, but tomorrow is April Fools Day. It's the...

March 26, 2022

On the Days when I Believe . . .

After spending six and a half decades in the middle of this faith thing, one...

March 20, 2022

The Will of God: How to Know It?

Midterm grades are due on my campus by midnight Wednesday; last Wednesday was the official...

March 19, 2022

Hanging Out with the World’s Most Interesting Man

His words carry weight that would break a less interesting man’s jaw Every once in...

March 03, 2022

What if Jesus Turned the Stones into Bread?

The Gospel reading in this coming Sunday’s lectionary for the first Sunday of Lent is...

February 2022

February 24, 2022

The Cruelest Thing a Person Can Say

I detect that a rebellion against all things “religious” is growing on me. Often it...

February 22, 2022

Faith and Insecurity

Have you never felt like one of those pawns forgotten in a corner of the...

February 17, 2022

Everything Changes, Including Us. Get Used To It.

All that you touch, you Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting...

December 2021

December 26, 2021

Jesus Goes to the Temple, and then gets grounded

Each week for many years, Garrison Keillor told “Prairie Home Companion” listeners the news from...

November 2021

November 13, 2021

Do You Want to be Certain, or Do You Want to be Honest?

Uncertainty doesn't make a person less faithful; it just makes her more honest. Rachel Held Evans...

November 11, 2021

Fighting for Our Lives

Psalm 146, one of my favorites among many candidates in the Book of Psalms from...

November 09, 2021

In Search of a More Nuanced and Interesting Faith

Fans of Rachel Held Evans' work are welcoming the publication of her final book, Wholehearted...

October 2021

October 24, 2021

“The Heart Has its Reasons . . .”: Why I am Not an Atheist

In my ethics classes, we are currently in the middle of a unit called "Does...

October 10, 2021

An Appropriate Level of Outrage

As we have been selecting the required texts over the past couple of weeks for...

September 2021

September 18, 2021

Is There Reason to be Optimistic? Seriously?

In the interdisciplinary Honors course that I am team-teaching in this semester, we are smack...

September 16, 2021

Is Ignorance Just as Good as Knowledge?

A continuing theme of my various classes over the first three weeks of the semester...

September 12, 2021

The Stories We Tell and the Lies We Believe

As always, this past summer was a season of eclectic reading. I am team-teaching a...

September 02, 2021

Not Even Jesus Was Always His Best Self

My first teaching position was at a small university in Memphis. My department was the...

August 2021

August 31, 2021

I’m Faith and He’s Doubt

One of my favorite things to do is plan a new course, especially when I’m...

June 2021

June 07, 2021

Everything Does Not Happen for a Reason

The last text of the semester in my “Apocalypse” colloquium was Emily St. John Mandel’s...

June 02, 2021

God is Change, so Get Used to Different

All that you touch, you Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting...

May 2021

May 25, 2021

Do You Believe In the Human Heart?

The central theme of my ethics class this past semester was human dignity. Through short...

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