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October 2018

October 31, 2018

Halloween Jesus or Fire-Insurance Policy Jesus?

One Sunday, toward the end of a particularly lively and deep seminar with my “Living...

October 30, 2018

The Ghosts of Halloweens Past

Tomorrow is Halloween!–one of my least favorite holidays of the year. I know that offends...

October 25, 2018

What to Do When You Get Tired of Being Angry

Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Ephesians 4:26 Another week, another bunch of...

October 18, 2018

Does a Christian Have to be Certain About Anything?

If we remembered that water takes its color from the vessel containing it, we would...

October 16, 2018

Why Rich People Can’t Get Into the Kingdom of Heaven, and other inconvenient truths

Dear Dr. Morgan: I’m writing to let you know that I won’t be in class...

October 11, 2018

How to Live Autumn

Autumn is my favorite season, and October is my favorite month. This is not surprising...

October 05, 2018

Professional Wrestling, the Liberal Agenda, and Jesus

One of my many fond memories of my sons’ youth was our early Saturday morning...

September 2018

September 16, 2018

The Unexamined Faith Is Not Worth Having

He lived over two millennia ago, and as far as we know he never wrote...

September 13, 2018

The Sun, the Moon, and Prayer

Shortly before the 2013 conclave that would elect him as Pope Francis I, then Cardinal...

September 06, 2018

What the Author Meant May Not Matter

At the beginning of a seminar on the books of Exodus and Job from the...

August 2018

August 19, 2018

Wrestling With the Story

In Lies We Believe Abut God, Wm. Paul Young (author of The Shack) tells the...

August 16, 2018

Get Up, Kill, and Eat

I grew up in hunting country where at the appropriate times each year the males...

August 12, 2018

I Didn’t Make This Stuff Up

During the three years that I lived in Milwaukee while completing my Ph.D. studies at...

August 05, 2018

Faith Without Creed

One Sunday, not too many months ago, I decided to pay close attention to the...

July 2018

July 29, 2018

Like this God Stuff is Real

In her wonderful memoir Take This Bread, Sara Miles tells us of a conversation she...

July 08, 2018

God is Just a Story (and so are we)

Although the name of this blog is “Freelance Christianity,” and it is published on Patheos’...

July 05, 2018

To Whom Do You Belong?

A couple of years ago, my college celebrated its centennial. For Jeanne and me, the...

June 2018

June 19, 2018

Be Careful What You Vote For

An annual musical fixture of my Baptist upbringing was the Easter Cantata. Each year on...

June 14, 2018

Lessons Learned From a Blackberry Bush

A few years ago, Jeanne returned from a weekend with a friend in Vermont with...

June 05, 2018

Jesus Has a Bad Day

A conversation heard behind the scenes: Dude! Did you see what just happened?? How could...

June 03, 2018

The Kingdom of Heaven is Like a Weed

My family and I spent three years in the middle nineties living in the South—specifically,...

June 01, 2018

Getting Out of the Spiritual Nursery

Organized religion often is a source of packaged answers and comfortable solutions to important questions...

May 2018

May 30, 2018

“America First” is a Theological Heresy

Memorial Day week is a time for solemn remembrance. It also tends to be a...

May 24, 2018

Ruining the Christian Brand

In “Slander,” from her latest collection of essays, What Are We Doing Here?, Marilynne Robinson...

May 18, 2018

A Prayer for Graduates on Commencement Weekend

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships,...

May 10, 2018

The Crooked Timber of Faith

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made. Immanuel Kant...

May 08, 2018

The Lord Be With You . . .

What is the best way to get the attention of a bunch of Episcopalians? I...

May 06, 2018

What Christians Get Wrong About Jesus

Historical Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion ....

May 03, 2018

One Nation, Under God?

I was invited earlier this week by an online publication that I write for occasionally...

May 01, 2018

Taking a Moral Holiday

So here we are, a year and a half since Donald Trump was elected President....

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