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January 2016

January 30, 2016

Can you party and still be a Christian?

It's Mardi Gras season in New Orleans, which can be an awkward time for a...

January 23, 2016

Guest Post: 11 Things to do Once You Decide to Stay Married to Someone with Mental Illness

[Our guest contributor Steve Austin is a writer, blogger, and family man from Birmingham, Alabama....

January 18, 2016

MLK and the peace that isn’t peace

In church yesterday, our community prayer included several quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr....

January 17, 2016

The loneliness of being a grownup today

Is it lonelier being a grownup today than it was in the past? I often...

January 11, 2016

Can American Christianity be detoxified? (A summary of my first book)

Have we become what Jesus came to stop us from being? Many evangelical Christians in...

January 07, 2016

Do #BlackLivesMatter to white evangelical students and alumni of @WheatonCollege?

This week, Dr. Larycia Hawkins received notice from the Wheaton College administration that termination proceedings...

January 06, 2016

Can Jesus save the world from Christians?

It seems there are two kinds of Christians: those who think the world needs to...

December 2015

December 30, 2015

10 posts I wish more people had seen this year

Since everyone is doing their end-of-year top 10 posts, I figured I would do the...

November 2015

November 25, 2015

I’m thankful for the “ungrateful” protesters

The last time I heard my grandpa say the N-word was at a Thanksgiving dinner...

November 19, 2015

Support Clothing Drive for Uganda’s Good Samaritan Initiative!!!

Some of you will recall that I've used my platform to put out appeals in...

November 14, 2015

Resisting the Great Terrorist

The word devil is a bastardization of the Greek word diabolos, which is a compound...

October 2015

October 31, 2015

A lesson in walking slowly

My son Isaiah and I have developed a tradition. Each Saturday after he plays soccer...

October 27, 2015

The authority of the badge vs. the authority of the cross

Obedience and authority. The two favorite words of white conservative evangelical Christianity. They are at...

October 26, 2015

Mental illness, morality, and holiness

One of the most important struggles of my spiritual journey has been the way that...

October 22, 2015

How Cub Scouts is making me a better dad

Progressive Christians aren't supposed to like the Boy Scouts, especially not the Scouts'...

September 2015

September 22, 2015

What will happen if Pope Francis gets a selfie with the gays?

The latest drama manufactured by the culture war industrial complex is a tiff over the...

September 16, 2015

The best birthday present you could ever give me

Since it's my birthday, hundreds of people (some of whom actually know me) have gotten...

September 04, 2015

The squandered witness of anti-gay “martyrdom” in an age of dehumanizing sex

I'm not going to call Kim Davis a bigot. I don't think she's a malicious...

August 2015

August 20, 2015

Why moralistic meritocracy is incompatible with Christian teaching

There's a meme going around Facebook about a famous football player who boasts that he...

July 2015

July 15, 2015

The woman with the orthopedic shoes at my Monday mass

For two and a half years, I spent my Mondays at the Basilica of the...

July 05, 2015

Radical hospitality in a small-town United Methodist church

I must confess I’ve had some stereotypes in my head when it comes to small...

June 2015

June 30, 2015

The tragic demise of the word “membership”

This year's Virginia Annual Conference had the theme "From Members to Disciples." It's a common...

June 17, 2015

“I just want to do something that matters” (authenticity in an age of clickbait)

On the last day of our United Methodist Louisiana annual conference this year, a young...

June 10, 2015

“What if we were free to fail our way forward?”

I'm at the Louisiana annual conference where Dr. Elaine Heath is one of our guest...

June 08, 2015

Church without chatter: a weekend with the monks of St. Joseph Abbey

This past weekend, I found myself home alone without my wife or kids, so I...

May 2015

May 22, 2015

Breaking a child’s will: the idolatry of obedience

I read a really chilling blog post on Homeschooler's Anonymous about a disciplinary practice in...

May 19, 2015

Real evangelicals don’t gloat about church decline

I'm not sure who's getting more mileage out of the Pew report on church...

May 14, 2015

Jesus’ holiness vs. our moralism (with Debra Hirsch)

I've been reading Debra Hirsch's Redeeming Sex as part of the Patheos Book Club for...

May 13, 2015

What if churches were temples instead of programs?

The latest buzz on the Christian internet is the Pew research report about Christianity's decline in...

May 12, 2015

The self-critique of a social justice warrior

I am a social justice warrior. I mean that in the strictly pejorative sense of...