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November 2018

November 27, 2018

This is Why I am Not an Atheist

Despite my consistent self-description as a “person of faith,” I have been accused occasionally over...

November 25, 2018

Does Christianity Solve the Problem of Evil? (spoiler alert: no, it doesn’t)

In the six-plus years that I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve occasionally been asked what...

November 21, 2018

Is My Ignorance Worth as Much as Your Knowledge?

In early 1980, Isaac Asimov wrote something in a Newsweek article that has been making the rounds on...

November 18, 2018

Welcoming the Stranger

I was a stranger, and you welcomed me. Matthew 25:35 Over the past couple of weeks...

November 15, 2018

Mary, Martha, and Time Management

The stereotype of the Type A personality has become an entrenched part of cultural lore....

October 2018

October 28, 2018

The Life of Faith is Not a Fairy Tale

The first lectionary reading at church the past three Sundays have been from one of...

October 23, 2018

Assisting the Absent God: Helping to Repair a Broken World

Every once in a while someone posts a comment on my blog that reminds me...

October 21, 2018

The Chapel and the Man Cave: Bridging the Gap Between Faith and Intellect

About a month ago I received an email from my friend Marsue, brief and to...

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 14, 2018

What People of Faith and Atheists Can Agree On

About half way through the 1989 film “Field of Dreams,” Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin...

October 09, 2018

Call Her “Doctor”–She’s Earned It (and so have I)

According to the gospel accounts, Jesus had little regard for traditional honorifics, titles, or the...

September 2018

September 25, 2018

Obsessed with the Apocalypse

Last spring I taught a colloquium called "Apocalypse" with a colleague from the English department....

September 23, 2018

When an Atheist Finds Out That There is More Than One Kind of Christian

One of the many things that make teaching a rewarding vocation is receiving unsolicited testimonials...

September 11, 2018

Seventeen Years Ago Today

Two years ago, the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11 fell on a Sunday. The priest of...

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...

September 03, 2018

It’s Labor Day–What is YOUR Labor Worth?

It's Labor Day--an opportunity for each of us to reflect on the value of our...

August 2018

August 28, 2018

Happy New Year! The First Day of Classes

Today is the first full class day of the semester at my college. Everyone has...

August 07, 2018

The Most Profoundly Religious Statement of All: “I Don’t Know”

Let me tell you here first, “trust in God” has never floated my boat as...

July 2018

July 22, 2018

Don’t Be Afraid

I had the opportunity to spend two hours with a young man named Hayden Bruce...

July 19, 2018

Making the Universe More Beautiful Through Diversity

A number of years ago, during a public forum on my campus focused on steps...

July 10, 2018

God’s Works Are as Good as We Make Them

God would have us know that we must live as people who manage our lives...

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’...

June 2018

June 21, 2018

This is What You are Afraid of

Frederick Buechner says that vocation is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s...

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,...

May 2018

May 28, 2018

A Memorial Day Question: Is Democracy Overrated?

It is Memorial Day, a great day to honor those who have made sacrifices over...

May 22, 2018

Why the Liberal Arts Matter

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning historian David McCullough was the speaker at Providence College's Commencement exercises...

May 17, 2018

Is Israel in the West? and other questions from the classroom

Swirling around the dedication of the new United States embassy in Jerusalem this week have...

May 06, 2018

What Christians Get Wrong About Jesus

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

April 2018

April 24, 2018

The A$$hole Saint

I come from a hardcore Protestant world, a world in which we did not do...

April 10, 2018

Moral Apocalypse

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. Shakespeare, King Lear This week,...

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