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April 2024

April 19, 2024

Healing Begins with Listening

It occurred to me a couple of days ago that the spring semester is ending...

April 17, 2024

What are God’s Pronouns?

RMy baseline criterion for whether a particular class has gone well is to answer the...

April 15, 2024

Jesus Wants You to Pay Your Taxes and to Like It

Today is tax day. As the familiar saying goes, just like death taxes are inevitable....

April 14, 2024

Designing God

Voltaire once wrote that if God did not exist, we would have to invent him....

April 09, 2024

Fast and Slow in the Life of Faith

I learned a couple of days ago on "Hidden Brain," one of my favorite podcasts,...

April 07, 2024

Thomas, Michel, and the Importance of Doubt

Jeanne and I spent Thursday through Saturday of Holy Week in a movie theater. We...

April 04, 2024

The Rapture or a Random Harvest?

Perfect submission, perfect delight, Visions of rapture now burst on my sight; Angels, descending, bring...

March 2024

March 31, 2024

I See You: An Easter Reflection

Easter Sunday--the most triumphant day on the Christian liturgical calendar. According to New Testament scholar...

March 28, 2024

Could You Not Watch With Me One Hour?

HOly WeekSome people can sleep anywhere. One of those people was a student in one...

March 26, 2024

God Finds Us to be Infinitely Interesting

April is going to be Marilynne Robinson month for me. In the team taught interdisciplinary...

March 24, 2024

Kicking Off Holy Week: “I’ll be Jesus”

The Palm Sunday celebration in a liturgical Christian church can be both confusing and jarring....

March 14, 2024

Eating Your Words. Literally.

Truth isn’t sympathetic to our need for certainty or stability. Jared Enns, “The Bible for...

March 12, 2024

Introduction to “For Everything There is a Season” . . .

Yesterday I had a very encouraging conversation with an editor from a publishing company who...

March 10, 2024

Serpents in the Wilderness

Today's gospel gets us back to the basics. Sports fans old enough to remember the...

March 07, 2024

Let There Be Light (or not)

In the opening lines of Genesis we are told that “In the beginning . ....

March 05, 2024

Another Birthday Tomorrow–do I have anything new to say?

Tomorrow is my birthday (#68)--the fact that my youngest son finds a way to travel...

March 03, 2024

Faith on Three Wheels

Next week is my birthday week, an annual opportunity for me to consider how old...

February 2024

February 29, 2024

Being a Person of Faith in Challenging Times

This has been a challenging week in class, not because of my students but because...

February 27, 2024

God, Your Boss at Applebee’s, and Larry

An alternative title for this essay might be “A Comedian Interprets the Parable of the...

February 25, 2024

What If I Don’t Want to Take Up My Cross?

Last week I introduced a bunch of honors sophomores to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's distinction between "Cheap...

February 22, 2024

Did Jesus Misread Human Nature?

The Gospel reading for last Sunday, the First Sunday of Lent, is the account of...

February 18, 2024

Who Would Jesus Bomb? A President’s Day Reflection

Tomorrow is President's Day, which for all college professors means--as do all Monday holidays in...

February 15, 2024

A Terrible Beauty

The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper. I cannot quite make...

February 13, 2024

Lent and Valentine’s Day

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent (my least favorite liturgical season). As the...

February 08, 2024

Doing Good for the Sake of Goodness

Last Monday's text in my sophomore Honors seminar, a course that spans literature, history, theology...

February 01, 2024

Is Religion a Virus?

The last time I was a member of a search committee for a new tenure...

January 2024

January 25, 2024

God Isn’t Angry At Us

A former student who wrote for our campus student newspaper once asked me during an...

January 23, 2024

What Exactly is a Freelance Christian?

I have been told on occasion by readers of this blog that "Freelance Christianity" is...

January 21, 2024

Is Your Life Going According to Plan?

When I first started this blog a bit over eleven years ago, I told Jeanne...

January 18, 2024

Real Wives of the Ancient Middle East

Last Sunday's lectionary reading from the Hebrew Scriptures is the story of God's call of...

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