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Progressive Christian

2025-07-23T17:05:22-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Forgotten Anniversary–Again!

Last updated on: July 23, 2025 at 5:05 pm By Vance Morgan

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Jeanne and I visited our friends Suzy and Michael in Florida over the weekend. They were hosting a baby shower for their daughter-in-law (their oldest son’s spouse) who is due with their first grandchild in September. We flew Providence to Philadelphia to Tampa and were blessed with an unexpected upgrade to first class seats on the Philly to Tampa leg. First class is awesome. It was just after 7:30 am; as we sat in seats 4A and 4B, watching the... Read more

2025-07-15T16:24:54-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Anna’s Promise and the Power of Love

Last updated on: July 15, 2025 at 4:24 pm By Vance Morgan

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In spite of my love of and occasional success with flowers and plants, I have a checkered history with roses. They are temperamental, picky, and have a general attitude that I don’t appreciate. When we moved into our house almost three decades ago, it was clear that the previous owners had little interest in landscaping; there was nothing other than grass in the back yard and a meager collection of scrubby evergreen bushes in the front—the sort of bushes that... Read more

2025-07-16T15:36:07-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Remembering a Friend After a Decade

Last updated on: July 16, 2025 at 3:36 pm By Vance Morgan

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I was reminded by email a couple of days ago that it has been a decade since one of my good friends died. Ivan Kauffman and I were only friends for five or six years, but he made an indelible impression on my life in many ways. Here’s the essay I wrote at the end of July as I travelled by train to Philadelphia for his funeral and memorial service. Monday morning–early. The 30th Street Amtrak station in Philadelphia is... Read more

2025-07-14T16:42:39-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Finding the Thing with Feathers

Last updated on: July 14, 2025 at 4:42 pm By Vance Morgan

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Anyone who has ever stepped inside a Catholic church more than once for a mass that includes music has undoubtedly heard “On Eagle’s Wings.” I’m not Catholic, and “On Eagle’s Wings” is far from my favorite sacred song, but I do have a history with it. “On Eagle’s Wings” is a tune from the Catholic charismatic renewal movement of the 1970s and 80s. I became aware of such music from my wife Jeanne shortly after we got together in the... Read more

2025-07-13T07:00:02-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Good Samaritan and Humility

Last updated on: July 13, 2025 at 7:00 am By Vance Morgan

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The Proper 10 Year C gospel from Luke is one of Jesus’s most beloved parables. Is there any parable more familiar than the story of the Good Samaritan? And is there any parable whose message is more difficult to live out? Jesus uses the story to illustrate mercy, the second virtue in the prophet Micah’s directive to “do justice, love kindness/mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” Jesus agrees with the man who concludes that the true neighbor in the... Read more

2025-07-09T16:32:51-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Death is Inevitable

Last updated on: July 9, 2025 at 4:32 pm By Vance Morgan

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One of my most effective attention-getters in any given class is to point out to a bunch of 18-21 years olds that unless there is a major breakthrough in medical technology in the next few decades, we know one thing to be true with certainty. Within 100 years, everyone in this classroom will be dead. Mortality is an inexcapable feature of being human, a feature that I’ve been thinking about more recently. One of the few remaining vestiges of my... Read more

2025-07-08T07:03:15-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Faith Cheapened by Fear

Last updated on: July 8, 2025 at 7:03 am By Vance Morgan

Jeanne was away for most of the last ten days with her sister in Brooklyn who is dealing with some serious medical issues. Finding myself alone with Bovina in the summer is different. During the school year I always have work piling up, classes to prepare for, meetings to attend, and grading to do. But my courses for the fall are already set to go, I just finished going through the draft of my next book one more time, and... Read more

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2025-07-05T13:08:04-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Listening to the Invisible People

Last updated on: July 5, 2025 at 1:08 pm By Vance Morgan

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Today’s reading from the Jewish scriptures contains many powerful lessons that remain relevant thousands of years later, including some important truths about faith, human nature, and class distinctions. Along the way, it also shows how important it is to listen to the people in your life, even those whom you doubt have anything important to say. Naaman was a powerful and important man, the head general of the armies of the king of Syria to the north of the kingdom... Read more

2025-07-08T10:43:18-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The United States is Not a Christian Nation

Last updated on: July 8, 2025 at 10:43 am By Vance Morgan

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Christianity, or any branch of it, loses its Christian character when its self-proclaimed supporters outnumber and outshout its actual adherents.~Marilynne Robinson Is the United States a Christian nation? Attempts to answer this disputed question usually focus on specific language in the founding documents of the United States, quotations from the correspondence and essays of the Founding Fathers, what percentage of the citizenry identifies as “Christian,” and individual interpretations of history. It’s a familiar debate in which the various sides tend... Read more

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2025-06-24T12:10:00-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

There are Two Kinds of People . . .

Last updated on: June 24, 2025 at 12:10 pm By Vance Morgan

I ran an informal experiment on Facebook not long ago, the point of which was to see how quickly it would take people to get upset and defensive over something that, arguably, is not worth getting upset or defensive about. It’s shocking how easily I can be entertained, especially when seeking to avoid more important things that I should be doing or thinking about. I posted that There are two kinds of people. People who back into parking spots and... Read more

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