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Mercy Not Sacrifice

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June 2020

June 05, 2020

I Want You To Get It

I don’t want you To be canceled; I want you to get it. And nobody...

May 2020

May 04, 2020

Home (A Poem About A Mother Who Waits)

Mom wants you to come home: I am not the older brother, Only a goofy...

April 2020

April 15, 2020

No Unimportant Stories (A Poem About Heaven)

There are no unimportant stories And when we finally exist In our final form in...

October 2019

October 09, 2019

How I Would Rewrite Desiring God’s “Joy” Tweet

A recent drama in Christian Twitter (several news cycles ago) involved the circulation of a...

January 2019

January 08, 2019

Theology That Builds Walls

Donald Trump would not be fixated on building a wall on the southern border of...

April 2018

April 25, 2018

Is Hell the Reason to Love Jesus?

Tim Keller wrote two books Prodigal God and Generous Justice that really shaped me and which...

July 2017

July 23, 2017

When Jesus’ garden becomes a monoculture

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

May 2017

May 19, 2017

7 Things AA Taught Me About Salvation

I would argue that what AA calls "recovery" is what Christian salvation was supposed to...

January 2017

January 24, 2017

Five #AlternativeFacts of toxic Christianity

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

October 2016

October 17, 2016

Christian spirituality for a non-Christian audience

I've been offered an amazing opportunity by the Tulane Hillel rabbi Yonah Schiller to talk...

August 2016

August 24, 2016

Is Jesus the only way to God?

This week's Crackers and Grape Juice episode addressed the question "Is Jesus the only way...

June 2016

June 22, 2016

Detoxify Christian lingo #1: Salvation

I've decided to write a series of blog posts focusing on some of the Christian...

June 20, 2016

Why I still believe in hell

My dear friend and podcast-mate Jason Micheli just wrote a very kind review of my...

April 2016

April 20, 2016

No, heaven and hell are not about afterlife insurance

I was handed a tract last night on Tulane's campus that gave me the answer...

January 2016

January 13, 2016

Is damnation of the other a cornerstone of evangelical belief?

The Larycia Hawkins situation at Wheaton has become fodder for a lot of conversation about...

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...

May 2015

May 06, 2015

How a core evangelical doctrine became my gateway heresy

The other week, a friend playfully tweeted out a warning not to mess around with...

October 2014

October 11, 2014

How mental illness made me a pastor

Today my son Matthew and I participated in a walk with the National Alliance on...

February 2014

February 23, 2014

Wrestling with heaven and hell (last weekend’s #sermon #podcast)

I keep on getting busy and forgetting to post my sermon podcasts. Last weekend, for...

July 2013

July 30, 2013

A new metaphor for thinking about heaven and hell

I've been reading a very stimulating and provocative book by Pauline Biblical scholar Michael Gorman...

July 24, 2013

Is the gospel the invitation to a party or a get out of hell card?

For the first 1500 years of Christianity, the high point of every worship gathering was...

June 2013

June 16, 2013

Sarah Moon and unmerciful #universalism

A week ago, ex-evangelical blogger Sarah Moon wrote a post titled: "When my abuser is...

May 2013

May 21, 2013

I want to sit in the clouds with Zach Sobiech

Sometimes you hear songs that only your eyes know how to talk about. I've spent...

May 13, 2013

Born from beyond, not just again (John 3:3)

I listened to a second podcast today from Company of Burning Hearts, a British charismatic...

April 2013

April 14, 2013

Why you need to hear Jonathan Martin preach about heaven

I've got issues with how people talk about heaven. It bothers me that the most...

February 2013

February 01, 2013

Holistic sexuality, distorting pieties, and the pursuit of heaven

There's been an outburst this past week from evangelical women bloggers against the idolatry of...