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Progressive Christian

2020-01-02T21:13:00-04:00

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.

Best of 2019 #5: Is Donald Trump the “Chosen One”?

Last updated on: January 2, 2020 at 9:13 pm By Vance Morgan

On this third day of the New Year, I am grateful for many things–including the fact that my blog exploded into an entirely different level of readership during 2019 (double the traffic of 2018, which had been my best year)! Over the next few weeks I will be sharing the “Best of 2019” essays from “Freelance Christianity,” beginning today with #5 on my “most read and visited” list. Last August, President Donald Trump suggested in an impromptu press conference on... Read more

2019-12-31T16:21:51-04:00

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.

The Best and the Worst: My New Year’s Hope for 2020

Last updated on: December 31, 2019 at 4:21 pm By Vance Morgan

There are eight to ten movies that Jeanne and I watch religiously during the Christmas season, from the obvious (“It’s a Wonderful Life,” “White Christmas”) to a few that are not as well-known. We ended our annual Christmas movie-watching binge on Christmas Eve this year with one of the lesser known films, the 2006 French film “Joyeux Noel.” One of my favorites, this film is a fictionalized account of the 1914 Christmas Truce that spontaneously occurred in numerous places along the... Read more

2022-04-11T17:13:57-04:00

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.

Letting God Creep In

Last updated on: April 11, 2022 at 5:13 pm By Vance Morgan

About halfway through his lengthy essay, Schjeldahl notes his agreement with one of Weil’s most striking claims. “Simone Weil,” he writes, “said that the transcendent meaning of Christianity is complete with Jesus’ death, sans the cherry on top that is the Resurrection. I think so.” In one of the “coincidences” that happen so often that I do not believe them to be coincidental, I discussed the very passage from Weil that Schjeldahl is referring to in my blog post... Read more

2019-12-29T02:40:23-04:00

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 Family on the Run, and Dead Babies in the Streets

Last updated on: December 29, 2019 at 2:40 am By Vance Morgan

This Christmas season seems more dissonant than most, with violence across the globe, an impeachment trial looming in the Senate, and jostling for air space with department store muzak and familiar stories from the pulpit. But the juxtaposition of promise and death, of expectation and suffering, of order and chaos, is nothing new. This dissonance is built into the fabric of the stories that we tend to tell selectively and sanitize for public consumption at this time of year. Today’s... Read more

2019-12-27T09:03:13-04:00

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.

Dammit, It’s the Incarnation!

Last updated on: December 27, 2019 at 9:03 am By Vance Morgan

Last year around this time, I posted an essay that turned out to be more controversial than I thought it would be. Since I’m always in favor of stirring things up, I thought I’d run it past everyone again this year. Enjoy! On Christmas Eve morning, I noticed that a Facebook friend had posted a poll on her site. The question was: Which is more meaningful to you—Christmas or Easter? While many respondents commented that their vote was based on... Read more

Collegeville Institute

2019-12-23T20:38:35-04:00

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.

Why the Details of Jesus’ Birth Don’t Matter

Last updated on: December 23, 2019 at 8:38 pm By Vance Morgan

A couple of years ago, I was asked to take on a temporary administrative position for the following semester in addition to my teaching duties. After agreeing to do so, my first step was to go on a fact-finding and listening tour, talking individually with the dozen or so people most knowledgeable concerning the issues I knew I would be grappling with. As I spent an hour or more with each of these colleagues, I found that it was often... Read more

2019-12-21T08:47:19-04:00

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 Really Awesome Stepfather with a Questionable Pedigree

Last updated on: December 21, 2019 at 8:47 am By Vance Morgan

In my religious tradition, we didn’t do saints. But we did do Christmas pageants—big time. I remember in various pageants being an angel, a wise man, a shepherd—all of the usual male roles. My most triumphant pageant appearance, though, was the year I got to be Joseph. Wearing a white dish towel on my head secured with a bathrobe belt, I gazed with a holy aspect at the plastic headed Jesus in the make-shift manger while the narrator read the... Read more

2019-12-20T20:47:56-04:00

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.

I Will Bring You Home

Last updated on: December 20, 2019 at 8:47 pm By Vance Morgan

Baptist preacher’s kids get to do some very odd things. I memorized large portions of the Bible under duress, including–as a dutiful five-year-old–the names of the books of the Old Testament minor prophets to an obnoxious sing-songy tune. I could run through all of them in one breath—Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. These obscure texts were written in a ancient time for a distant people in contexts and for reasons known only to the most... Read more

2019-12-18T11:43:19-04:00

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.

Some Thoughts about Impeachment Day–from 400+ years ago

Last updated on: December 18, 2019 at 11:43 am By Vance Morgan

Next semester I will be teaching an honors colloquium on Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), one of the most important and influential thinkers and writers in the Western tradition. As fate would have it, the first of Montaigne’s essays I read this morning was “Of the useful and the honorable,” reflections on what Montaigne learned from his life in public service, both as the mayor of Bordeaux and as a liaison and diplomat between warring (literally) factions in violence-torn 16th century... Read more

2019-12-16T14:07:54-04:00

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.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in Cages: Why Faith is Always Political

Last updated on: December 16, 2019 at 2:07 pm By Vance Morgan

When Claremont (California) United Methodist Church unveiled its annual outdoor Nativity last week, it caused a stir that made the news on virtually every national outlet and sparked a debate that continues to rage on social media. This was no traditional, baby-in-a-manger tableau. Instead, Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus had been separated and locked up in individual chain-link pens, topped by barbed wire fencing. This Nativity scene was intended to reflect the plight of immigrants and asylum seekers whose... Read more

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