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Progressive Christian

2018-07-24T16:12:11-04:00

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 Never-Ending Prayer

Last updated on: July 24, 2018 at 4:12 pm By Vance Morgan

As I do initial work on my new book on prayer (contract now signed!), I am following my usual procedure of paying close attention to whatever the author I am currently reading has to say about the topic. In her spiritual memoir Still, Lauren Winner begins a brief chapter on prayer by noting that “it is easier to read about prayer than to pray” (tell me about it), then describes the results of a fifty-year-old study of children and prayer,... Read more

2018-07-26T09:23:01-04:00

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.

What I Learned About My Faith When I Visited Cuba

Last updated on: July 26, 2018 at 9:23 am By Vance Morgan

Fifteen years ago, I was part of a group of a dozen or so academics who visited Cuba for a week on a fact-finding trip related to their health care system. I returned from this experience with very different attitudes about our neighbor 90 miles to the south than I had before the trip, as I described in my article entitled “Shattering the Myths About Cuba,” included in one of my college’s publications in the Spring of 2004 . .... Read more

2018-07-16T12:06:35-04:00

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.

Don’t Be Afraid

Last updated on: July 16, 2018 at 12:06 pm By Vance Morgan

I had the opportunity to spend two hours with a young man named Hayden Bruce on Skype a couple of weeks ago. He has a new podcast called “Pragmatic Christian”—he found my blog and was attracted to a number of things he found there. Our conversation lasted almost two hours—the link is below. Toward the end of our conversation, he asked me what advice I might have for a person going through a crisis of faith (he called it a... Read more

2018-07-18T13:29:06-04:00

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.

Making the Universe More Beautiful Through Diversity

Last updated on: July 18, 2018 at 1:29 pm By Vance Morgan

A number of years ago, during a public forum on my campus focused on steps we might take toward addressing the fact that we had a blindingly white student body, faculty, and administration, one of my senior faculty colleagues raised his hand and asked the question that a number of people in the room were probably wondering, but didn’t have the guts to ask: Why do we want to have a diverse campus? Despite its serious violation of all standards... Read more

2018-07-16T13:59:41-04:00

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.

Expecting to Find Light

Last updated on: July 16, 2018 at 1:59 pm By Vance Morgan

We are not simply made by God—we are made of God Julian of Norwich I began my most recent book (link at the bottom of the page!) with a personal story. Toward the end of a transformative four-month sabbatical in the spring of 2009, I heard a homily given by a Benedictine monk at the abbey where I had been spending a couple of hours a day reading psalms and praying with the monks for weeks. I don’t remember anything... Read more

2018-07-17T15:57:10-04:00

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.

What If God and Morality Have Nothing to Do with Each Other?

Last updated on: July 17, 2018 at 3:57 pm By Vance Morgan

Is there any true transcendence, or is this idea always a consoling dream projected by human need onto an empty sky? Iris Murdoch I just finished reading Fredrick Backman’s A Man Called Ove, a novel I stumbled across in my college’s bookstore while looking for something else. I haven’t decided yet whether I give it a thumbs up or thumbs down, but one brief passage has stuck with me. As a sixteen-year old whose beloved father has just died (his... Read more

2018-07-09T15:02:32-04:00

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.

What the Scots Think Of Donald Trump

Last updated on: July 9, 2018 at 3:02 pm By Vance Morgan

Donald Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom is underway—something that makes me very happy that Jeanne and I vacationed in Scotland at the end of last month, thereby escaping most questions about why he is the American President, what the hell is wrong with Americans for allowing this to happen, and similar unanswerable queries that we were able to largely avoid during our wonderful nine-day stay. I told friends and family before we left that we were going to do... Read more

2018-07-09T15:12:00-04:00

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.

God’s Works Are as Good as We Make Them

Last updated on: July 9, 2018 at 3:12 pm By Vance Morgan

God would have us know that we must live as people who manage our lives without God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer A bit over a year ago, I found myself on an Amtrak Acela headed for a conference on Simone Weil, where I would be reconnecting with some friends and colleagues as well as presenting a paper (the last one of the conference, usually the third rail of such events). After a four and a half hour train trip to Philadelphia, then... Read more

2018-07-05T13:45:33-04:00

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.

God is Just a Story (and so are we)

Last updated on: July 5, 2018 at 1:45 pm By Vance Morgan

Although the name of this blog is “Freelance Christianity,” and it is published on Patheos’ “Progressive Christian” channel, I regularly attract comments from readers who do not fit those categories by any stretch of the imagination. Occasionally, someone using arguments and language I recognize from my evangelical Protestant upbringing will respond to my “liberal” or “non-Christian” ideas by weaponizing the Bible and seeking to beat me up with it. Such people usually are surprised to find that I am perfectly... Read more

2018-06-27T18:17:01-04:00

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.

To Whom Do You Belong?

Last updated on: June 27, 2018 at 6:17 pm By Vance Morgan

A couple of years ago, my college celebrated its centennial. For Jeanne and me, the highlight of a series of events scheduled to mark the anniversary was a lecture by Doris Kearns Goodwin. We arrived early enough to sit in the second row, twenty feet or so from the podium, and along with a packed house were held spellbound for over an hour as our favorite historian used examples from the lives of Presidents about whom she has written best... Read more

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