For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
Why are Christians so afraid of art and literature? I have worked in education all of my adult life, and if there is one thing I can guarantee, it is that if I prescribe a text with any hint of magic, sex, or swearing (funnily enough, violence is usually less of an issue)there will be... Continue Reading →
I want to season this piece with grace, if possible. So I am going to ask your pardon upfront if it sounds like I am being dogmatic or bitter. That is not my intention. I don’t want to go on a crusade against certain types of Christians; that said, I do have serious reservations about... Continue Reading →
I first heard about Edwin Abbott’s 1884 novel, Flatland, when Sheldon made reference to it in Big Bang Theory, and I have loved it ever since as an illustration to explain theology. It is the story of a square who lives in a two-dimensional world, who has an encounter with a sphere from a three... Continue Reading →
I have to give credit to my son’s school. I have a suspicion that I am not going to be the most compliant parent they have ever had to deal with. The “problem” is that I do not see education as something that I pay the school to impose upon my child; I see us... Continue Reading →
I need to confess to being a bit of a cultural snob. Or at least that is the label that has sometimes been given to my expressed preference for artworks that indicate that their creators possess at least the semblance of cognitive functioning, and to my insistence that when those same artists communicate with me... Continue Reading →
Like so many other important wisdoms, we have read it on the backs of sugar packets or pasted onto nauseating memes so many times that we tend to overlook the truth the statement contains: life is a journey. The important things in life are always journeys, not events. The events may mark milestones along the... Continue Reading →
All of us will have stories of teachers who have – for better or for worse – shaped how we see ourselves, who we have become, and – by extension – the children we raise and the communities we participate in. Many of us will have unwittingly adopted attitudes, paradigms, habits that were engendered in... Continue Reading →
Somehow this advent season has felt different, which I suspect is a result of the journey I have been on in terms of interrogating my own theology. When we put up our Christmas tree recently, as Nathan hung ornaments on every available space on the tree and sang carols loudly, adopting a liberal creativity with... Continue Reading →
I am going to start off controversially: if you believe that entry into Heaven is the Christian hope, you have misread the gospels. More than that, I believe that this belief that Jesus’s primary mission was to win us a free pass through the Pearly Gates is the single most damaging doctrine preventing us from... Continue Reading →
