Methodist minister Rev. Frank Schaefer (not to be confused with Frank Schaeffer) has come up against what some might call a conflict of interest in living out his call as a minister of the gospel. Some might even call his experience a crisis of faith, but for Schaefer and his son, Tim, the struggles they have faced in recent weeks and months have yielded beautifully unexpected blessings. Schaefer’s troubles with the larger Methodist Church go back some six years to when... Read more
I lived my whole live trying to follow Jesus, but when the rapture came, I got all tangled up in my attic insulation. D’OH!!! Read more
I am excited about, and very proud of, the coming release of the third book in my “Banned Questions” series, Banned Questions About Christians. in a recent blog post, I listed the 50 questions my team of respondents and I take on in this volume. In this post, I’m pleased to share the names and bios of all of the contributors for this book. As you’ll note, there are some remarkable voices included here; I’m honored to call each of... Read more
The busier life gets, the more corners we cut. One of the first things to go for me is self-care. My wife, Amy, and I both work full time and we have two kids, so it’s fairly easy to get to the end of the day and realize we haven’t exercised, had enough water, eaten a balanced diet or even taken time to stretch. So we recently picked up a pair of these new “fitness bands” that so many people... Read more
(Special thanks to my wife, Rev. Amy Piatt, for her collaboration on this entry with me.) The following is excerpted from my Heretic’s Guide to the Bible weekly study. To read more or join the study, CLICK HERE or on the banners above or below. Situation comedies are the worst. You know the ones; they’re always thirty minutes long, usually filmed on a soundstage with a live audience, and the worn out pre-recorded laugh track in the background to let... Read more
I’m excited to announce that my next book in the Banned Questions book series, “Banned Questions About Christians,” is available for pre-order at Chalice Press and Amazon. These books ship by year’s end, but I wanted to offer a preview of the questions we will take on in this, the third volume in the series! Please check it out, share with others who might enjoy the series, and watch for the next post, in which I’ll introduce the fantastic contributors for this... Read more
Once upon a time there was a Christian who thought he was wrong about something, but it turns out he was mistaken… Read more
We’re stoked to finally have Richard Cizik, co-founder of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good and former Vice President at the National Evangelical Association, on the show. He spent nearly three decades at the NAE until he became a wee bit too tolerant of the gays and concerned about the earth. Cizik talks about what constitutes a “new evangelical,” the power of Christian hegemony and how little it takes to lose all standing with the old evangelical guard. We continue... Read more
Welcome to Tripp Hudgins, another guest blogger while I’m away. Tripp Hudgins is a PhD student at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California; a preaching pastor, Baptist cantor, liturgiologist, ecumenist, writer of articles, ethnomusicologist (hon.), and grateful husband. His work is an exploration of sonic theology, mandodoxy, found objects (such as grace, time, timbre, or other holy scrap), and some good old fashioned sangin’. He blogs at anglobaptist.org. It’s started. I was following the Twitter feed for the conversation between Nadia Bolz-Weber and Amy Butler... Read more
I’m very pleased to introduce Philip Clayton, an associate of mine who will be offering some guest blogs on some topics interest we have in common: PostChristian culture, postmodern theology, and the trajectory of faith in the 21st century. Philip Clayton is the Ingraham Professor of Theology at Claremont School of Theology. Clayton earned a joint PhD in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Yale University and has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, and the University... Read more
Christian Piatt
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