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October 2012

October 25, 2012

The meaning of human suffering is not The Meaning of Human Suffering

Human suffering is not primarily a metaphysical problem. It is also that, and such metaphysical...

October 13, 2012

Theology & science fiction: A Calvinist dystopia

Here is my proposal for theological science fiction. Start with our world, with this world...

October 04, 2012

Ninevites are not ‘God’s children’

"And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are...

September 2012

September 19, 2012

The evangelical-mainline shell-game

Ellen Painter Dollar extends an invitation to young evangelicals exhausted and frustrated by their community:...

September 16, 2012

Calvinists, Arminians, atheists and other sub-categories of non-Sheilaism

"Does God Play Duck-Duck-Goose?" Richard Beck asks, critiquing the Calvinist doctrine of "double predestination." That's...

August 2012

August 13, 2012

The Committee will see you now

This photograph of Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr and Henry Pitney Van Dusen (which I've seen...

August 12, 2012

Sex and theology

One of the massive and ongoing projects in Christian theology is the filtering out of...

August 10, 2012

Religious right pretends that Obama has a ‘God-talk’ problem

So here's a common urban legend on the religious right, stated here by Phyllis Schlafly:...

August 09, 2012

Re: The ToJo God-blogging challenge

Tony Jones taps his foot impatiently, muttering that much of the response to his challenge,...

August 09, 2012

God, Part 2: The problem with pronouns

(This is the second piece of my response to Tony Jones' "Challenge to Progressive Theo-bloggers."...

August 07, 2012

God, Part 1

Tony Jones has a challenge and an invitation for "all progressive theo-bloggers." Write something substantive...

July 2012

July 30, 2012

Two more thoughts on ‘Miracles’

A couple more stray thoughts in response to reading Tim Stafford's Miracles for the Patheos...

July 26, 2012

‘Making the text say things that it never meant’

One of my pet-peeve misconceptions is the notion that an illiterately literal reading of Genesis...

July 10, 2012

Golden Rule jokes and porpoise costumes

James McGrath and Hemant Mehta both point us to this cartoon, from Zach Weiner's wonderful...

July 07, 2012

Maybe God is a better person than you think

Jesus Creed serves up a guest post by Jeff Cook on one of my least...

June 2012

June 25, 2012

Southern Baptists say the magic words

At the convention's annual meeting, Southern Baptists reaffirmed the magic words. America's largest evangelical denomination...

June 20, 2012

‘Statements of faith’ are really long creeds for the anti-creedal

Christian Piatt discusses "The Fallacy of Statements of Faith": A while back, I was applying...

June 11, 2012

Never Have I Ever, Leviticus edition

Tad's Happy Funtime scores himself against the list of "76 Things Banned in Leviticus." Seeing...

June 10, 2012

Hardcore Reformed theology from Jake VanDorn

One of my favorite movie moments was finally posted as a clip on YouTube: That's...

June 01, 2012

On evangelism: Hattie Durham, the Demon Deacon and loving your neighbor

This started as a footnote to today's Left Behind post, which touches on the horrible...

May 2012

May 31, 2012

The evangelical bubble cannot be sustained (part 2)

A standard line of argument for sex education says that if young people aren't taught...

May 31, 2012

The evangelical bubble cannot be sustained (part 1)

The following unrelated items are not unrelated: 1. Latebloomer, who writes at Past Tense, Present...

May 24, 2012

I’m looking through you

I enjoyed this trippy, riffing and rambling reflection from John Van Sloten at Think Christian:...

February 2011

February 28, 2011

Team Hell gets loud

The evangelical blog world seems all atwitter over a forthcoming book by Rob Bell, pastor...

February 26, 2011

A Vindication of Democracy

Another quick note in response to the Rev. John MacArthur's strange belief that Reformed theology...

February 22, 2011

The Beastly Counter-revolutionary Counter-Revelation

Revelation 13 In amazement the whole earth followed the beast. They worshipped the dragon, for...

February 18, 2011

The Apostate and Me

I've finally finished reading "The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology," Lawrence Wright's...

January 2011

January 02, 2011

Epiphany: One of us

If you look at the calendar for the coming week you'll see this word written...

January 14, 2009

Gerbils and polar bears

Temple Grandin was on NPR's "Fresh Air" last week. Grandin, a professor at Colorado State,...

September 2006

September 28, 2006

The Language of Religion I

"The language of religion," Atrios writes, is "something I don't understand. It's gibberish to me....