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September 2014

September 06, 2014

How Andrew W.K. messed with my prayer life

The Village Voice in New York City has a weekly advice column by a guy...

September 02, 2014

How I would say what Victoria Osteen said differently

In a video clip that has been making the rounds on social media, prosperity gospel...

August 2014

August 31, 2014

Grace vs. niceness in interracial dialogue

I wanted to ponder the difference between grace and niceness in difficult online conversations, particularly...

August 20, 2014

Could you listen to an angry black Jesus?

I know. He doesn't look all that angry. There just aren't any good angry black...

August 17, 2014

Why I refuse to shame people for social media silence

A few days ago, a friend of mine expressed disappointment that a preacher many of...

August 08, 2014

What if instead of attacking gay people, evangelicals supported celibate monasticism?

The latest thing conservative evangelicals on social media are getting excited about and sharing around...

August 07, 2014

Ridicule is great clickbait, but is it good for Christian community?

If there's one thing that defines our era, it's the way that people like to...

July 2014

July 31, 2014

Who are the weeds in God’s garden? (Matthew 13)

This picture is a renegade chamomile plant that came up through a crack in our...

July 13, 2014

Exit-trolling: the new tactic in Facebook psychological warfare

I remember a few years ago when Facebook was young, people used to play a...

July 10, 2014

#jadapose: when rape culture and misogyny can’t be blamed on those conservatives

There's a new meme on twitter called #jadapose. A girl named Jada was at a...

July 05, 2014

#WildGoose14: where the Trinity was a dance party without inhibition

I've been meditating on two things that my brother Jonathan Martin said during our rave...

June 2014

June 29, 2014

Challenge: a week without mocking

One of the most toxic things that happens in our social media world is the...

June 25, 2014

Spiritual tinkering: good or bad?

We've been having a stimulating conversation at the campus ministry summer institute at Candler School...

June 24, 2014

When you troll me, you get unfriended

One of the things that grieves me about the social media era is the way...

June 22, 2014

#VAUMC14: We voted for real conversation about sexuality; that means the onus is on us to have it!

Yesterday, my colleague Tom Berlin put forward a motion to postpone the resolution that had...

June 21, 2014

#VAUMC14: Connection — institution vs reality

Part of our annual conference program each year involves a teaching study led by a...

May 2014

May 27, 2014

Is there any #UMC accountability for resisting injustice and oppression?

It seems like in United Methodism as with many things, there are unspoken rules about...

May 26, 2014

I could have been Elliot Rodger

I know you're not supposed to read the manifesto of a mass murderer, but that's...

May 21, 2014

Culture war blindness: “I can see people but they look like trees walking”

Yesterday morning at our church staff meeting, we read the story of Jesus' double-healing of...

May 20, 2014

Can we stop using “I’ll pray for you” as a retort in social media?

I'll pray for you. How many of you have tweeted or commented that on facebook...

May 19, 2014

Some ambivalent thoughts on Sovereign Grace, the Gospel Coalition, and Twitter

The evangelical twittersphere has been reverberating over the past few days with the hashtag #IStandWithSGMVictims....

May 14, 2014

Why do Islamic fundamentalists sound so much like Christian ones?

Today I stumbled across a blog post written by a Malaysian Muslim named Farouk defending...

May 10, 2014

In defense of Boy Scout campouts (a reader responds)

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the way that the middle-class church is being...

May 01, 2014

Stop trolling! Seven ways to be a better internet critic

One of the real poverties of our digital age is the lack of authentic constructive...

April 2014

April 24, 2014

Social holiness is about way more than sex

Fellow Methodist pastor Evan Rohrs-Dodge wrote a very legitimate post recently pointing out the distinction...

March 2014

March 04, 2014

What is Biblical obedience? Abraham, Huck Finn, and Adolf Eichmann

There's a movement within United Methodism called "Biblical Obedience" whose name itself is offensive to...

January 2014

January 27, 2014

Church, I think we’re gonna be okay

The past several years of my life have been building up to a three and...

January 24, 2014

A response to @BillMaher’s recent comments about God

I've been reading an interview with outspoken atheist comedian Bill Maher in the Atlantic. The...

January 22, 2014

Is it worse to humble-brag or to pull a Richard Sherman?

In the blogosphere, the key to building a platform is to make other people think...

January 21, 2014

Some Henri Nouwen thoughts on prayer

A woman from my church gave me a bunch of spiritual books because she was...