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Progressive Christian

2020-07-05T14:19:27-04:00

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.

Congratulations, President Trump: You Got Your Wall

Last updated on: July 5, 2020 at 2:19 pm By Vance Morgan

Two summers ago, Jeanne and I took our first honest-to-God vacation in our thirty-plus years together. We went to Scotland for nine days, the first time that we had ever gone on a vacation that did not involve seeing family, squeezing in a work conference, or some other justification for simply taking a break. We simply picked a place—Scotland—and went. We had such a wonderful time that, even before we returned home, we were planning the next time that we... Read more

2020-07-05T07:06:20-04:00

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 Your Burden Light?

Last updated on: July 5, 2020 at 7:06 am By Vance Morgan

Teaching for twenty-five years in an interdisciplinary program with colleagues from a multitude of disciplines has provided me with the best that academe can offer a professor—a continuing education. In an academic world which so often demands narrower and narrower research focus and specialization from its members, it has been a gift to spend the majority of my career thus far at a place that welcomes breadth and encourages—and sometimes requires—its faculty to regularly wander outside their comfort zone in... Read more

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Development of Western Civilization

2020-06-30T15:24:17-04:00

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 Shall be None to Make Him Afraid”–An Independence Day Reflection

Last updated on: June 30, 2020 at 3:24 pm By Vance Morgan

Every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. George Washington, Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, RI Tomorrow is Independence Day—in most parts of the country, it will be a 4th without huge fireworks displays, with closed beaches and constant reminders that things have been, currently are, and for the foreseeable future will be very different than what we expect and hope for. I’m reminded of something Jeanne... Read more

2020-06-29T14:15:14-04:00

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’m White, I’m Privileged, and I’m a Christian. Now What?

Last updated on: June 29, 2020 at 2:15 pm By Vance Morgan

During the past month, in the context of protests for racial justice and police reform in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, I have come across an interesting meme several times on social media: White supremacists use the Bible to justify their racism. Problem is, there are no white people in the Bible. True, but I did not know that until I was at least in high school. The Jesus I grew up with was white, his Dad... Read more

2020-06-26T12:22:37-04:00

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 Not Optional

Last updated on: June 26, 2020 at 12:22 pm By Vance Morgan

I’ve been thinking a lot about end of life issues lately. Really. They seem to be showing up everywhere–on the television show we are currently binge-watching, in my readings in the Psalms, in Montaigne’s Essais that I taught last semester, in a lead article in the Atlantic that just came in the mail, in a novel I am rereading that will be the first assignment in my ethics class in the fall. You know who never talks about end of life issues? Political candidates.... Read more

2020-06-24T14:42:20-04:00

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 Did Jesus Tell Stories? Because All Good Teachers Do

Last updated on: June 24, 2020 at 2:42 pm By Vance Morgan

Man is in his actions and practices, as well as in his fictions, essentially a story-telling animal. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue One of the things I appreciated as a Baptist kid was that, according to the Gospel accounts, Jesus was a great story teller. Sure, he also could give sermons or speeches and pontificate at length—especially in John’s gospel–but for me then, as well as now, his most effective communication was through his parables. These short stories, populated with people, animals, and... Read more

2020-06-23T10:39:13-04:00

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.

Does the Arc of the Moral Universe Really Bend Toward Justice?

Last updated on: June 23, 2020 at 10:39 am By Vance Morgan

Former President Obama loved to quote a hopeful statement from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The quote was so important to the former President that he had it woven into a rug in the Oval Office. The statement is controversial, because it can be used to justify all sorts of ideas (since there are many conceptions of what “justice” amounts to), as well as a justification for... Read more

2020-06-18T16:20:58-04:00

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 Avoid Being Stupid

Last updated on: June 18, 2020 at 4:20 pm By Vance Morgan

Why do intelligent people believe lies that are easily exposed as lies? Why do intelligent people treat facts as disposable opinions? These are questions as current as today’s news. Pick any week during the past three years or more; we have been fed a steady diet of lies, evasions, prevarications, mistruths—your descriptive noun of choice will suffice. Occupants of the highest offices in the land habitually say things with a straight face that anyone with a computer can verify as... Read more

2020-06-17T14:28:57-04:00

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.

Donald Trump’s Ponzi Scheme

Last updated on: June 17, 2020 at 2:28 pm By Vance Morgan

If you are looking for a new novel to read, may I recommend Emily St. John Mandel’s The Glass Hotel. Mandel is a bit of a phenomenon these days because of her 2014 novel, Station Eleven, about a vicious pandemic known as the Georgia Flu that sweeps the globe with astonishing speed (most of those infected are dead within a day or two), killing more than 99 percent of the Earth’s population. Not surprisingly, the eerily prophetic aspects of Station Eleven... Read more

Emily St. John Mandel

2020-06-16T06:36:06-04:00

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.

Confronting the Sin of Certainty

Last updated on: June 16, 2020 at 6:36 am By Vance Morgan

If you think you understand it, it is not God. Soren Kierkegaard In Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel Gilead, Reverend John Ames (one of my top five favorite characters in all of fiction) frequently expresses doubt concerning his faith, something unexpected in a Congregational minister, at least in some circles. In the middle of the novel, Ames spends a few pages considering doubt and uncertainty in one’s faith within the context of challenges from non-believers to “prove” that God exists. Concerning... Read more

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