Indian in Another Place © 2006 Randy Woodley

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  i find myself locked inside this concrete maze to fulfill some ill-conceived expectation chained to the conversations of ten thousand people saying nothing together in bizarre concert my heart screams in silence escape…find the earth and let her hold you before peace is illusive and honor can not be claimed. **** the hostile city [...]

Is “Prodigal Christianity” Sustainable?

A couple of weeks ago, Tony Jones posted an introductory video to a new book by Geoff Holsclaw and David Fitch called Prodigal Christianity. I posted my initial thoughts, and then began a conversation with Geoff about the book via email. I told Geoff that I would read the rest of the book, and then [...]

A Pro-Science, Skeptical Woman Speaks

In my last post on another blog, “Feminism and Religion: Where Do I stand?” I talked about how I support an atheistic, secular, and liberal feminism that criticizes organized religion and certain religious beliefs.  I figured that having a brief interview with a woman who holds these sorts of views would be a good way [...]

beyond good and evil?

One of the most common questions in religion, philosophy and psychology is, “Are people born good or evil?” This used to be a really interesting question to me. I’m not really sure why. Back in my cool guy TULIP days, I needed people to be super evil so that my Big God could be more awesomer. When I was [...]

The Beauty of Spiritual Friendship – Doug Pagitt Radio Interview with Love & Salt authors

We had the privilege on Doug Pagitt Radio of interviewing Amy Andrews and Jessica Griffith about their book  Love and Salt – A Spiritual Friendship Shared in Letters. The audio is here. Video is here.

Learning How to Walk Again

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Learning to walk again… I have found this word picture to be a very helpful metaphor that creates in me an openness, a desire and a longing to embrace my personal spiritual recovery.  This metaphor is rooted in the Christ story, particularly in the second Adam image found in Romans 5.  By “second Adam”, I [...]

The Busy (c) 2003 Randy S. Woodley

The busy, dizzy bustle in this lonely, lonely world. Traffic moving forward. People moving back. More lights—the world’s a brighter place but look… Progressing dimness here in my soul. Hide the dimness—up the lights. Yell, at this world—yell at myself. Float my deepest feelings on national air waves Alone, I stay in the shallows. The [...]

Our Needs are Holy

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For those of you who have children, particularly young children, you know that one of the primary responsibilities of a parent is to ensure that the needs of your child are being met. That includes all of Maslow’s hierarchy. As a child matures, it becomes less and less our responsibility to meet the needs of [...]

Beyond Idolatry

a short blog post and poem written in response to our conversation with Peter Rollins on Doug Pagitt radio: http://dougpagittradio.com/beyond-idolatry

#SKEPTIMERGENT: the afterlife is for lovers

If you’ve never come across it, you might find Nietzsche’s theory of eternal recurrence to be really helpful like I have. There is debate about whether Nietzsche actually believed it. I highly doubt that he did, but, nevertheless, I think it’s an interesting thought experiment. The basic idea is that you should live your life [...]

#SKEPTIMERGENT: why NOT “church”?

I’m reconsidering a positive use of the word “church.” I have my criticisms, but I seem to be one of a very small number of people who are so allergic to it, at least in the worlds that I live in. Recently, a few of us started a new Emergent cohort here in Raleigh, NC, [...]

God Takes Sides?

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I recently read a biography of Desmond Tutu simply called “Tutu” – a read I highly recommend. This book was full of insights into an amazing human being. I’ll most likely be drawing from the wisdom I gleaned for years to come, but there is one piece of wisdom in particular I’d like to share [...]

Poetry: American Sons by Randy Woodley

Today, I’m posting about the American enterprise of war but really more about how precious is each person’s life and the cost of war to our humanity. “American Sons” is the poem. I apologize to all women because our daughters are now being sent to the front lines but when I wrote this poem, it [...]

#SKEPTIMERGENT: truth or love?

I have a theory: those so-called “liberal” or “progressive” people who are trying to understand what the Bible means today are doing so primarily because of love. Here’s what I mean… I think a huge part of my own personal conflict within evangelicalism was a conflict between “truth” – or what was “right” – and love. The more [...]