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December 2017

December 08, 2017

What Would The Israelite Prophet Isaiah Say About Trump’s Jerusalem Decree?

I have apparently siloed myself from the evangelical end-timers enough not to see the triumphalist...

October 2017

October 17, 2017

How Badly Have Traditional Christian Sexual Ethics Failed?

I was molested at an overnight lock-in for my church basketball team by the most...

October 11, 2017

What religion does this meme represent?

So apparently this meme has been circulating some circles on the internet: stand for the...

October 02, 2017

Some Thoughts on “Thoughts and Prayers”

Prayer is always primarily about the transformation of the one doing it.

September 2017

September 13, 2017

“Woe to you who are filled” (Luke 6:25)

Today is the feast day of St. John Chrysostom in the Roman Catholic Church. At...

August 2017

August 30, 2017

The Christians United Statement In Support of LGBT Inclusion

Post-evangelical social media got fired up yesterday after the release of an anti-queer statement from the...

August 26, 2017

The Theology That Pardons White Supremacy

Last night I witnessed a white United Methodist pastor seeking to justify Donald Trump's pardon...

August 13, 2017

What If This Is the New Church?

I've been thinking about what I would preach today if I were preaching. And I...

August 12, 2017

How Satan Wins in Charlottesville and Elsewhere

Last night, a group of white nationalists carrying tiki torches took over the UVA Lawn...

August 08, 2017

Is it un-Christ-like to drag a famous theologian online?

I got in trouble this weekend for a Facebook post in which I expressed regret...

August 04, 2017

Why Is NT Wright Calling Transgender People Gnostics?

The Gnostics would be puzzled by Wright's attribution of their philosophy to transgender people.

August 03, 2017

How AA defines holiness

The entry in AA's Daily Reflections for today says, "Our real purpose is to fit ourselves...

August 02, 2017

How do I preach the gospel at the #1 party school in the country?

It's official. The Princeton Review has declared Tulane University the #1 party school in the...

July 2017

July 31, 2017

What Does Winning Look Like for Christians?

Before Donald Trump became president, he promised that if he were elected, Americans would "win...

July 23, 2017

When Jesus’ garden becomes a monoculture

I have been a gardener for many years. And I hate weeds. In Louisiana, the...

July 19, 2017

7 Ways I’m Not Entirely Progressive

I just got back from the Wild Goose Festival. It's a great experience every year,...

July 17, 2017

If Jesus Had Been Eugene Peterson

Members of the Sanhedrin, I understand that the charges against me are quite serious. So...

July 04, 2017

The Selective Inerrancy of Romans 13 for American Patriots

The signers of the Declaration of Independence were not biblical inerrantists. If they had been,...

July 03, 2017

When God Won’t Let Me Go Off On The Evangelicals

I was planning to go off on the evangelicals in this blog post. After First...

June 2017

June 29, 2017

False Prophets Are Known by Their Fruit

Google is filled with legalistic, fundamentalist explanations of what a false prophet is. Usually it...

April 2017

April 27, 2017

The narrative that’s destroying United Methodism

There’s a narrative circulating around United Methodism. It goes something like this: if preachers would...

April 21, 2017

The debate that’s older than Paul’s letter to the Galatians (#NoSuchLaw)

The United Methodist Church faces a major flashpoint next week when our Judicial Council meets...

April 16, 2017

Can Easter be more than the church’s self-congratulatory triumphalism?

I've never known what to make of Easter. For evangelicals, the big day is Good...

March 2017

March 03, 2017

Detoxify Christianity: A FB Live Video Series for Lent

If you don't think there's anything toxic about American Christianity, then you can stop reading...

March 01, 2017

My ashes are my promise to resist sin (Ezekiel 9:4)

It's no secret that the mainline church would prefer not to talk about sin. That's...

February 2017

February 20, 2017

Is the Eucharist more powerful than an executive order?

On a recent podcast episode with Scot McKnight and Kenneth Tanner, Kenneth made the comment...

January 2017

January 29, 2017

Jesus doesn’t do walls (Ephesians 2:14)

If you want to get to the core ethos of true Christianity, Ephesians 2:14 is...

January 24, 2017

Five #AlternativeFacts of toxic Christianity

While government officials have always distorted truth, the Trump Administration is the first to openly...

January 11, 2017

What if Franklin Graham was right about God’s role in Trump’s election?

When the news broke of Russian interference in the presidential election, Franklin Graham responded with...

January 04, 2017

How did defenders of absolute truth become post-truth ideologues?

A crucial part of my conservative evangelical upbringing was learning about the difference between “absolute...