Interviews with Ogun Holder & Bryan Sirchio

We had the privilege to talk with author Ogun Holder, the author of Rants to Revelations: Unabashedly Honest Reflections on Life, Spirituality, and the Meaning of God this week. We also chatted with Bryan Sirchio about his book The 6 Marks of Progressive Christian Worship Music. Listen here: Watch here:

Doug Pagitt’s conversation with Matthew Lee Anderson about “The New Radicals”

I talked with Matthew Lee Anderson about his cover story in Christianity Today called “Here come the Radicals” (link is to the article). Matthew suggests that the “supperlative stressing” (my word not his) attitude of writers such as David Platt, Francis Chan, Shane Claiborne, and Kyle Idleman is not radical enough and actually a capitulation to the [...]

Intended for More than Relief

Monty Python's Life of Brian

What if the reasons we go to church actually perpetuates problems and doesn’t really help us get better? Studies have found most people go to church for a couple of reasons: they always have and it’s a habit based on an obligatory belief that somehow going to church is the right thing to do and [...]

We Are Back! – Shauna Niequist, Michael Toy, and More!

After a few weeks away and few more miles on Doug’s running shoes we are back! This week we checked in with author of Bread & Wine, Shauna Niequist and poet Michael Toy. We also tackled why preaching should be crowd sourced and why the declaration “I’m not homophobic” matters for evangelicals. Listen to the audio [...]

Does Your God Need to Be Fired?

Donald Trump Speaks To GOP Women's Groups

What if the God that you have given your life to, trusted in, and believed would bless and take care of – what if that God didn’t exist? I remember in the early days of my experience in the Twelve Steps, I was asked by a long-time member what my God was like. In the [...]

When You Know Better, You Do Better?

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There is no question that ignorance can harm us; but I’m not sure knowing better is necessarily equated to doing better. When we are ignorant of something, we simply don’t know and we act in accordance. A great example is how in the first half of the 20th century doctors would recommend cigarettes to help ease [...]

Subvert the norm: remaining vigilant

It is finished! We just had an amazing time at the subvert the norm conference at drury university in Springfield Missouri. There were some well known voices and some new voices that were added to the conference for this second installment. However, this is not an update, I will leave that up to those who [...]

Thank God, Persecution Is Coming

It seems that almost no one thinks that “our side” has lost. It’s only a matter of time until same sex marriage has become the new normal. But, many conservatives are making another argument in response to this impending change: “Christians” will be persecuted for their beliefs. Is this true? Well, one problem with this [...]

What’s Wrong With the “New Reformed” Movement? Part 2

Soon after I left the New Reformed movement, I took an American Literature class. I was surprised to learn just how much Calvinism had influenced many of the early American classics. One author in particular drew me in: Nathaniel Hawthorne. I don’t know much about Hawthorne, but after I read Young Goodman Brown, it felt [...]

Toward Collective Liberation: Building Successful Social Movements

TCLCover

It wasn’t until recently I realized that I had somehow lost a bunch of digital files off my computer. It was mainly photos and newspaper articles from my activist work when I lived in the San Francisco/Bay Area from the late 90′s to the mid 2000′s. That loss left me feeling sick with the thought [...]