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March 2019

March 26, 2019

Complicated Truths and the Challenge of Being Good

Once many years ago, a couple I was close friends with was having marital problems....

March 19, 2019

God Said It. I Believe It. That Settles It.

Not long ago, I found myself involved behind the scenes in a squabble between the...

March 17, 2019

Why I Am Done Trying to Prove the Existence of God

If you think you understand it, it is not God. Soren Kierkegaard In Marilynne Robinson’s...

March 10, 2019

Lifting the Fog from Faith

What we call doubt is often simply dullness of mind and spirit, not the absence...

February 2019

February 26, 2019

Forgiveness with No Boundaries

As we drove home from a lovely two-day celebration of our twenty-fifth anniversary several years...

February 06, 2019

Is Christianity a System of Belief or a Way of Life?

I have been accused frequently over the past several weeks by commenters on my blog...

January 2019

January 15, 2019

We Have Met the Nazis, and They are Us

We ought not to hide from ourselves that Nazi Germany is a mirror for all...

January 12, 2019

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Donald Trump, and Stupidity

Why do intelligent people believe lies that are easily exposed as lies? Why do intelligent...

December 2018

December 06, 2018

Does the Word of God Settle Everything?

I recently had a brief, unproductive exchange in the comment section of this blog with...

November 2018

November 21, 2018

Is My Ignorance Worth as Much as Your Knowledge?

In early 1980, Isaac Asimov wrote something in a Newsweek article that has been making the rounds on...

November 06, 2018

Are the People in the Caravan My Neighbors?

If everybody is your neighbor, then nobody is. Rod Dreher Next semester, a colleague and...

September 2018

September 18, 2018

Is it THE truth, or is it MY truth?

Ian McEwan's The Children Act is the story of Fiona Maye, an experienced and highly respected family...

September 11, 2018

Seventeen Years Ago Today

Two years ago, the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11 fell on a Sunday. The priest of...

September 06, 2018

What the Author Meant May Not Matter

At the beginning of a seminar on the books of Exodus and Job from the...

August 2018

August 26, 2018

Taking Our Country Back

One of my favorite staff writers for The New Yorker is Rebecca Mead; she’s been...

August 09, 2018

To Live In Safety and Without Fear

Every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall...

July 2018

July 17, 2018

Expecting to Find Light

We are not simply made by God—we are made of God Julian of Norwich I...

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 04, 2018

Happy Independence Day!

On our collective natal day, I offer the following–shamelessly stolen from The Onion–for your Independence...

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 23, 2018

Is America a Christian Nation? Should It Be?

A question that is almost guaranteed to start an argument in some circles goes to...

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...

May 2018

May 17, 2018

Is Israel in the West? and other questions from the classroom

Swirling around the dedication of the new United States embassy in Jerusalem this week have...

May 03, 2018

One Nation, Under God?

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

April 2018

April 26, 2018

White Privilege and the Gospels

In my General Ethics class, my students and I have just finished a three week...

April 10, 2018

Moral Apocalypse

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

April 05, 2018

Jesus and Karl Marx walk into a bar . . .

We should read the New Testament as saying that how we treat each other on...

April 01, 2018

An Easter Cautionary Tale: Jesus Isn’t Walking Through That Door

God is not an insurance agent. H. G. Wells During Rick Pitino’s tenure as the...

March 2018

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...

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