A Year After Parkland: Do Guns in the Classroom Make Sense?

Last updated on: February 16, 2019 at 11:59 am By Vance Morgan

Valentine’s Day last week marked the first anniversary of the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Many argue that the students’ response changed the landscape of the gun debate in this country–I certainly hope so. Because I am a teacher, I’ve paid particular attention over the past year to occasional discussions of something that President Trump suggested shortly after the Parkland shooting as a possible strategy to reduce school gun violence: teachers with guns. Trump called... Read more

God’s Works are as Good as We Make Them

Last updated on: February 18, 2019 at 1:26 pm By Vance Morgan

The gospel reading for last Sunday was Luke’s abbreviated version of the Beatitudes. It is a scene so familiar in our imaginations that it has become iconic. In films, on television, the subject of countless artistic renditions, we are transported back two thousand years. It is a beautiful, cloudless day. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people have gathered in the countryside from miles around; some have walked for hours. On the top of a hill in the middle of the impromptu gathering is... Read more

An Excuse Not To Think

Last updated on: February 16, 2019 at 8:56 am By Vance Morgan

I recently read the following observations: They weren’t such bad fellows. He had mixed with their type all his life: patriotic, conservative, clannish. For them, ______ was like some crude gamekeeper who had mysteriously contrived to take over the running of their family estates: once installed, he had proved an unexpected success, and they had consented to tolerate his occasional bad manners and lapses into violence in return for a quiet life. Now they had discovered they couldn’t get rid... Read more

Grownup Love: A Post for Valentine’s Day

Last updated on: February 13, 2019 at 8:06 am By Vance Morgan

Not long ago, Jeanne and I had dinner with Beverley and Ed, two Long Island friends whom we do not see often enough. Jeanne and Beverley met and became close friends a number of years ago when they both worked for the same university; neither have worked there for some time now, but their friendship has stayed strong over the years and miles. Jeanne calls Beverley “Ethel” to Jeanne’s “Lucy”—which must be okay with Beverley, since I’ve never heard her... Read more

The Most Important Lesson from the Sermon on the Mount: Don’t be a Jerk

Last updated on: February 11, 2019 at 4:53 pm By Vance Morgan

In his lovely little book Wishful Thinking, Frederick Buechner suggests that what we often dismiss as “coincidence” might instead, for those inclined to pause for a moment, provide evidence of something going on behind the scenes. The friend you have been out of touch with unexpectedly calls or emails just as you were thinking about her for the first time in weeks. One of your favorite authors references a text from the Jewish scriptures on page two of her new book... Read more

What Can We Do Now That There Is No God?

Last updated on: February 8, 2019 at 11:46 am By Vance Morgan

Several weeks into the new year, I am for the first time getting to teach three of my favorite courses in the same semester. One of these courses involves an in-depth investigation of the work of three of the most important writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, all of them women. One of these women is Iris Murdoch. When constructing the syllabus last summer, it did not even occur to me that 2019 is a particularly appropriate year to... Read more

Is Christianity a System of Belief or a Way of Life?

Last updated on: February 9, 2019 at 9:18 am By Vance Morgan

I have been accused frequently over the past several weeks by commenters on my blog and on Facebook of promoting an understanding of Christianity that is significantly different than “traditional and historical” Christianity. I’m not sure what these critics thought they were going to find on a blog called “Freelance Christianity,” but there you go. I’m somewhat amused by the “traditional and historical Christianty” trope, because that almost always means “what conforms to my version of Christianity”–a trope that tends... Read more

Why Jesus Doesn’t Want To Be Donald Trump’s Friend

Last updated on: February 5, 2019 at 8:44 am By Vance Morgan

President Donald Trump’s delayed State of the Union address is tonight. Most everyone knows what he is likely to say and has already formed either dismissive or supportive opinions about it. We found out the other day, though, that some people believe that when Donald Trump speaks, a higher authority is in the building. In an interview last week with the Christian Broadcasting Network, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders revealed that in her estimation, Trump’s Presidency is divinely ordained.... Read more

The Super Bowl and the F-Word

Last updated on: February 1, 2019 at 6:50 am By Vance Morgan

The Super Bowl is upon us! As an avid Patriots fan, I feel perfectly comfortable in saying that I know the Patriots will defeat the Rams. But do I really know that? I had this conversation with a bunch of students this past week. There’s nothing like unexpectedly dropping an f-bomb on a bunch of students. But it’s even better when one of them does it. I teach at a Catholic college, so one would think that the students would be... Read more

Sacred Spaces and Dunkin Donuts

Last updated on: January 30, 2019 at 2:58 pm By Vance Morgan

I currently am working my way slowly through Walter Isaacson’s wonderful biography of Leonardo da Vinci. One of the many fascinating things about Leonardo is that he does not fit the model of a solitary and tortured genius. So far, at least (I’ve got him up to his middle thirties), Leonardo appears to have been an extroverted “people person” who loved bouncing ideas off other creative people, the sorts of folks he surrounded himself with in his studio and travelling... Read more