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November 2022

November 17, 2022

What I Have Learned From Our Blackberry Bush

It is mid-November; the leaves on the large oak tree in the yard diagonally behind...

November 06, 2022

One Wife for Seven Brothers: A Strange Story with an Important Lesson

A conversation overheard as a bunch of guys at a sports bar wait for the...

October 2022

October 31, 2022

Do You Believe in Halloween Jesus?

It's Halloween. Halloween gives me the opportunity to consider my long and checkered past with...

October 29, 2022

How to Make Certain Christians Very Angry

In the ten-plus years of this blog’s existence, I have made any number of Christians...

October 25, 2022

Karl Marx and Jesus Walk into a Bar . . .

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

October 22, 2022

What is Prayer Supposed to Accomplish?

Today's gospel lectionary reading reminds me of an August day several years ago when the...

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 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 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...

September 04, 2022

Exploring the Studio Space with God

Guess what? I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. Bruce Dickinson Regular...

August 2022

August 30, 2022

It Is “The Best of Times” Once Again

Literary phrases for the beginning of a new academic year abound, such as Dickens' "It...

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 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...

August 04, 2022

When are F-bombs Appropriate in the Classroom?

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1...

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 23, 2022

Negotiating with God

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

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...

June 2022

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...

June 21, 2022

So You Want to be Free? Face your Demons

Iris Murdoch is one of my favorite philosophers and novelists, a writer whose work is...

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,...

June 16, 2022

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

In much wisdom there is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. Ecclesiastes...

June 07, 2022

How Should a Normal Person Approach the Bible?

I recently came across a great podcast called “The Bible for Normal People,” hosted by...

June 03, 2022

Faith Needs Many Things, But It Doesn’t Need a Creed

One Sunday I decided to pay close attention to the words of the Nicene Creed...

May 2022

May 30, 2022

Loving My Country and Loving God are Not the Same Thing

The June edition of The Atlantic contains an excellent and sobering article by Tim Alberta. Titled...

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