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Progressive Christian

2018-07-03T20:13:24-04:00

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.

Happy Independence Day!

Last updated on: July 3, 2018 at 8:13 pm By Vance Morgan

On our collective natal day, I offer the following–shamelessly stolen from The Onion–for your Independence Day entertainment. Happy Birthday to us! While drafting the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers roasted and ate one bald eagle every night Many of the original Founding Fathers toured the world after 1776 to found several other countries besides the United States, including Thailand, Lichtenstein, and Uruguay Many of the Founding Fathers opposed slavery, but, you know, not really enough to do anything about... Read more

2018-07-03T06:50:16-04:00

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.

All Things Shall Be Well?

Last updated on: July 3, 2018 at 6:50 am By Vance Morgan

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. I don’t know when I first heard this well-known saying; it regularly pops up in various places. A teaching colleague commented on it in her lecture a few semesters ago on Julian of Norwich, the medieval Christian mystic to whom the saying is attributed. T. S. Eliot includes it in “Little Gidding,” the last poem in Four Quartets. My friend Marsue says “all... Read more

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Christianity

Development of Western Civilization

Development of Western Civilization

2018-07-01T16:08:38-04:00

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.

Prayer for People Who Don’t Believe in God

Last updated on: July 1, 2018 at 4:08 pm By Vance Morgan

Last week I contracted with a publisher to write a book on prayer–the working title of the book (hopefully released in Fall 2019) is Prayer for People Who Don’t Believe in God. I’m excited–this is not a topic that I would necessarily have chosen, but the publishing house contacted me after one of their editors started reading this blog and liked my approach to sticky and difficult religious concepts such as prayer. The working title is a nod toward what I... Read more

2018-06-25T15:44:54-04:00

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.

Does Everything Work Together for Good?

Last updated on: June 25, 2018 at 3:44 pm By Vance Morgan

Jeanne and I recently had the opportunity to see a local community theater’s production of Godspell, one of my all-time favorite musicals. We went because a friend was in the show; as it turned out, two other people that we know were also in the ensemble, one from church and one from the college. Godspell burst on the scene in the early seventies when I was in high school, around the same time as Jesus Christ Superstar. Both shows shocked... Read more

2018-06-25T15:13:18-04:00

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.

You Don’t Have to Believe Everything You Think

Last updated on: June 25, 2018 at 3:13 pm By Vance Morgan

I have grown weary of trying to understand the unquestioning support that Donald Trump receives from thirty-five to forty percent of the American electorate, but continue to find certain aspects of that support both frustrating and fascinating. Trump supporters often say things like “He’s saying things that many of us have been thinking for years but have, for any number of reasons, not been able to say. He speaks for us.” Which raises the question—How much of what we believe to... Read more

2018-06-23T09:18:51-04:00

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.

Is America a Christian Nation? Should It Be?

Last updated on: June 23, 2018 at 9:18 am By Vance Morgan

A question that is almost guaranteed to start an argument in some circles goes to the heart of both American and Christian identity. Is America a Christian nation? In an essay published last week by Bearings, the online magazine of the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research in Collegeville, Minnesota, I grapple with this question as framed by Marilynne Robinson in several of her recent essays. Robinson asks: What would one expect to find if America (or any other country)... Read more

2018-06-11T16:27:52-04:00

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.

This is What You are Afraid of

Last updated on: June 11, 2018 at 4:27 pm By Vance Morgan

Frederick Buechner says that vocation is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. A note from a marginalized student at the end of the semester reminded me that, sometimes, this actually happens. Read more

books

Christianity

Development of Western Civilization

2018-06-11T13:25:45-04:00

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.

Be Careful What You Vote For

Last updated on: June 11, 2018 at 1:25 pm By Vance Morgan

An annual musical fixture of my Baptist upbringing was the Easter Cantata. Each year on Easter evening our small choir would perform a contemporary setting of the Passion and Easter story from Last Supper through the Resurrection. My aunt Gloria was the choir director, several of my relatives sang in the choir from my pre-teen years on, and from about age twelve through high school I was the piano accompanist for this annual event. We weren’t that good and the... Read more

2018-06-10T08:30:42-04:00

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.

When to Be Skeptical, and When to Believe

Last updated on: June 10, 2018 at 8:30 am By Vance Morgan

Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, “Some gardener must tend this plot.” The other disagrees, “There is no gardener.” So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. “But perhaps he is an invisible gardener.” So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G.... Read more

2018-06-10T08:20:04-04:00

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.

Lessons Learned From a Blackberry Bush

Last updated on: June 10, 2018 at 8:20 am By Vance Morgan

A few years ago, Jeanne returned from a weekend with a friend in Vermont with a little plant in a box—a Vermont blackberry bush. It has been trying to take over our back yard ever since. It has also recently been the source of a fascinating, ongoing conversation that Jeanne and I have had about fruit, growth, and how to bring what is greater than us into the world. Our new family member looked innocent enough, but it actually had... Read more

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