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Progressive Christian

2024-10-21T14:54:52-04:00

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.

A Report from Theology Beer Camp

Last updated on: October 21, 2024 at 2:54 pm By Vance Morgan

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This past weekend I was at a conference in Denver called “Theology Beer Camp.” If academics committed themselves more often to crafting such creative titles for their annual get-togethers, more people would want to go. Theology Beer Camp was a gathering of several hundred progressive/deconstructing theologians from across the country; as I’ve often said, although I’m not a theologian, I could play one on television. Several aspects of the conference were themed to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy;... Read more

2024-10-14T09:36:27-04:00

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.

Living an Autumn Life

Last updated on: October 14, 2024 at 9:36 am By Vance Morgan

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Autumn is my favorite season, and October is my favorite month. This is not surprising for a native New Englander—fall weather is the best that the Northeast has to offer and October promises cloudless skies, reducing temperatures, turning leaves, and no humidity. Even though it is rainy as I write this on Indigenous Peoples day, the last few weeks have given us spectacularly beautiful weather. I love it. But those of us fortunate enough to be living the academic life... Read more

2024-10-12T18:59:52-04:00

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.

Hard Sayings and Inconvenient Truths

Last updated on: October 12, 2024 at 6:59 pm By Vance Morgan

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I will be receiving the copyedited version of my book A Year of Faith and Philosophy back from my editor in a couple of weeks–copyediting is an important step, since it means that the content of your book has passed editorial muster. The copyeditor is simply the grammar and punctuation Nazi who doesn’t care about the content at all. Since I’ve been doing this for a while and serve as the grammar and punctuation Nazi for my students all the time,... Read more

2024-10-11T14:04:02-04:00

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.

This is a Hard One

Last updated on: October 11, 2024 at 2:04 pm By Vance Morgan

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Today I simply want to share something brief that I heard on a podcast a couple of days ago. Many of us–most, perhaps–are stressed about the upcoming election. In my case, at least, there are byproducts of this stress that don’t “seem like me.” I find myself, for instance, feeling very judgmental toward the millions of people who are just as entrenched in their belief about who must be the next president–but they disagree with me about who that person... Read more

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2024-10-07T14:47:02-04:00

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.

A Christian Nightmare

Last updated on: October 7, 2024 at 2:47 pm By Vance Morgan

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What would happen if we actually took the things we claim to believe seriously enough to do something about them? Seriously enough to completely change our lives? Katie is a “good person”—doctor for the National Health Service, mother, wife, and socially aware—but is desperately unhappy with her life. Her husband David is angry and cynical; he writes a newspaper column called “The Angriest Man in Holloway” in which he pillories everything from old people who walk too slowly getting off... Read more

2024-10-05T20:51:31-04:00

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.

Teach Us to Sit Still

Last updated on: October 5, 2024 at 8:51 pm By Vance Morgan

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In one month the most consequential Presidential election of our lifetimes will take place. People are already voting by mail, and all indications is that we may not know the winner for days after. Everyone is nervous, many are jaded, others have lost hope. A few thoughts about self-care are in order. Early in her 2018 book Almost Everything, Anne Lamott describes what an older woman in the midst of a twelve-step recovery program once told her. One of the... Read more

2024-10-01T14:12:28-04:00

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 Christians Do Un-Christian Things

Last updated on: October 1, 2024 at 2:12 pm By Vance Morgan

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One of the teaching teammates I have taught with for the last half-dozen years is a Victorian literature scholar. This, of course, includes Charles Dickens. Her choice from Dickens for the syllabus often is the über-familiar A Christmas Carol; she gave two lectures on this text earlier this week. A Christmas Carol in late September/early October might seem anachronistic, but the text is about far more than a particular time of year. Its moral themes are both timeless and remarkably... Read more

2024-09-30T16:44:01-04:00

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.

Living the Social Gospel

Last updated on: September 30, 2024 at 4:44 pm By Vance Morgan

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Next week in the interdisciplinary program I teach in will be “Social Gospel” week. Students will read Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum for Tuesday lecture, then essays from Herbert Spencer and Andrew Carnegie, as well as the introduction to Walter Rauschenbusch’s 1917 book A Theology for the Social Gospel for Thursday seminar. Rauschenbusch was one of the most important voices of the social gospel movement in the early 20th century, a movement within Protestantism that applied Christian ethics to social... Read more

2024-09-26T21:16:34-04:00

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.

How to Delegate Authority

Last updated on: September 26, 2024 at 9:16 pm By Vance Morgan

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Today’s lectionary reading from the Jewish scriptures is from Numbers. We find the liberated Israelites in the desert, and they are complaining—again. God has miraculously provided them with a daily supply of manna to keep them from starving, but everyone is pining for the wonderful variety of food they remember eating in Egypt. We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength... Read more

2024-09-26T14:01:44-04:00

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 We Believe Things That Aren’t True

Last updated on: September 26, 2024 at 2:01 pm By Vance Morgan

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Over the years that I have been writing this blog, those who describe themselves as non-believers or atheists have frequently expressed regular confusion and frustration about the same issue. It usually goes something like this: “How can someone who seems to be relatively normal and intelligent believe in something without any evidence?” I don’t get defensive when asked this and similar questions—I don’t want to be that sort of Christian. I often reply by suggesting that there is evidence to... Read more

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