My newsfeed has two kinds of common historically inaccurate stories. Members of my own Faith often exaggerate the Christian nature of the American Founding and experience while secularists keep writing that America was never a Christian nation. Lately the secularists have taken to arguing that America became particularly “Christian” in a civil religion sense during the Cold War. American did indeed add “under God” to the pledge of Allegiance during that period and Dwight D. Eisenhower was given to clumsy... Read more

I want the truth even if the truth hurts. Oedipus was told by the prophet that he could not handle the truth, but asked for it in any case. He could not handle it and ended up blinding himself. And yet the truth was the truth and Oedipus was right to learn it. Being a Christian comforts some people and that is a good reason to hope it is true, but not good enough by itself. Good news by itself is not... Read more

We are all bad before Easter. We do what we wish we did not do. We allow greed, lust for power, and hate to consume and kill our souls. We all should have a bad Easter, but nobody need end that way. We all can have a good Easter because this Pascha feast is for everyone. Everyone is invited and we can come even if we denied Jesus right up to the moment He came out the tomb where hate... Read more

Jesus was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The guarantee of his death was the brutality of the Romans, the Sanhedrin, the Sadducees, and the chief leaders. Pilate did it: and Pilate was good at crucifixion, something he often chose to put his hand to.  Jesus was dead and his own religious group, the Pharisees, were still worried about Him. They feared the legend would be greater than the sinless man. They need not have... Read more

Judas did the great evil for a petty payoff. Every filmmaker and every novelist try to make Judas Iscariot more complicated than he appears in the Gospel. This student of Jesus traveled with the greatest man of history and sold him out for thirty pieces of silver. That is not very much money for your soul, but Judas made the deal and damned himself to history. Yet it a sign of the truth of the historical records we have that... Read more

There is great pride in false humility and one way to have a bad Easter is to reject what Jesus wishes to do for you. It isn’t that Jesus will smite you, but that you will have harmed yourself by choosing to cut yourself off from joy, mercy, and healing. If you wish to be sad, bitter, and sick, you may, but then you should not complain about the evil in your life. God became a man, fully human, so... Read more

Occasionally I meet someone who hates Christianity who also wants to see a miracle and usually has a particular miracle in mind. If I do this particular party trick, then they would believe! Reason is not enough. Revelation is not enough. They demand a greater sign than creation and personhood. I am thankful that God has not given me the power to perform such miracles because the reaction is not good. How do I know? When I have seen a miracle (and I... Read more

Prejudice is not new to humans, no sin is. Our racial prejudice in America is a pseudo-scientific spin on the human sin in hating and exploiting someone different than the favored group. For most of history, this prejudice has happened on religious, ethnic, or social grounds. Social status can be marked in many ways and a feeling of superiority is for many one of the better perks. I am not like those people. Jesus faced prejudice by being from Galilee and... Read more

Christianity attracts grifters like a church picnic in Houston attracts mosquitos. Like mosquitos, the church grifters go where food is to be found and their lifeblood is money and power. The grifter, Harold Hill in the Music Man is an example, makes his living through sideshow fraud. He also has a big dream and a big plan but leaves behind smoking ruins when he is done. The grifter is always fatally attractive to a troubled establishment as he is powered... Read more

Easter celebrates the conquest of death by Life.* This is the day we remember that God became man so man could become like God. This is the greatest party and a foreshadowing of the party to come. But I am a philosopher by nature and we are cynical souls and so begins a series on the people who are more like I would have been during those great days. These are the people who had a Bad Easter. They chose,... Read more