I had the opportunity to spend two hours with a young man named Hayden Bruce on Skype a couple of weeks ago. He has a new podcast called “Pragmatic Christian”—he found my blog and was attracted to a number of things he found there. Our conversation lasted almost two hours—the link is below. Toward the end of our conversation, he asked me what advice I might have for a person going through a crisis of faith (he called it a... Read more
A number of years ago, during a public forum on my campus focused on steps we might take toward addressing the fact that we had a blindingly white student body, faculty, and administration, one of my senior faculty colleagues raised his hand and asked the question that a number of people in the room were probably wondering, but didn’t have the guts to ask: Why do we want to have a diverse campus? Despite its serious violation of all standards... Read more
We are not simply made by God—we are made of God Julian of Norwich I began my most recent book (link at the bottom of the page!) with a personal story. Toward the end of a transformative four-month sabbatical in the spring of 2009, I heard a homily given by a Benedictine monk at the abbey where I had been spending a couple of hours a day reading psalms and praying with the monks for weeks. I don’t remember anything... Read more
Is there any true transcendence, or is this idea always a consoling dream projected by human need onto an empty sky? Iris Murdoch I just finished reading Fredrick Backman’s A Man Called Ove, a novel I stumbled across in my college’s bookstore while looking for something else. I haven’t decided yet whether I give it a thumbs up or thumbs down, but one brief passage has stuck with me. As a sixteen-year old whose beloved father has just died (his... Read more
Donald Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom is underway—something that makes me very happy that Jeanne and I vacationed in Scotland at the end of last month, thereby escaping most questions about why he is the American President, what the hell is wrong with Americans for allowing this to happen, and similar unanswerable queries that we were able to largely avoid during our wonderful nine-day stay. I told friends and family before we left that we were going to do... Read more
God would have us know that we must live as people who manage our lives without God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer A bit over a year ago, I found myself on an Amtrak Acela headed for a conference on Simone Weil, where I would be reconnecting with some friends and colleagues as well as presenting a paper (the last one of the conference, usually the third rail of such events). After a four and a half hour train trip to Philadelphia, then... Read more
Although the name of this blog is “Freelance Christianity,” and it is published on Patheos’ “Progressive Christian” channel, I regularly attract comments from readers who do not fit those categories by any stretch of the imagination. Occasionally, someone using arguments and language I recognize from my evangelical Protestant upbringing will respond to my “liberal” or “non-Christian” ideas by weaponizing the Bible and seeking to beat me up with it. Such people usually are surprised to find that I am perfectly... Read more
A couple of years ago, my college celebrated its centennial. For Jeanne and me, the highlight of a series of events scheduled to mark the anniversary was a lecture by Doris Kearns Goodwin. We arrived early enough to sit in the second row, twenty feet or so from the podium, and along with a packed house were held spellbound for over an hour as our favorite historian used examples from the lives of Presidents about whom she has written best... Read more
On our collective natal day, I offer the following–shamelessly stolen from The Onion–for your Independence Day entertainment. Happy Birthday to us! While drafting the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers roasted and ate one bald eagle every night Many of the original Founding Fathers toured the world after 1776 to found several other countries besides the United States, including Thailand, Lichtenstein, and Uruguay Many of the Founding Fathers opposed slavery, but, you know, not really enough to do anything about... Read more
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. I don’t know when I first heard this well-known saying; it regularly pops up in various places. A teaching colleague commented on it in her lecture a few semesters ago on Julian of Norwich, the medieval Christian mystic to whom the saying is attributed. T. S. Eliot includes it in “Little Gidding,” the last poem in Four Quartets. My friend Marsue says “all... Read more
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