“With Mutual Respect”–An Exercise in Eloquent Listening

Last updated on: December 6, 2022 at 7:49 am By Vance Morgan

On the last Wednesday of September, an event took place on my college campus that was several months in the making. Called “With Mutual Respect: Discussions on Contemporary Challenges,” it was the first in a projected series of dialogue/discussion event on controverial topics initiated by the President of the college last May. In the interest of starting with the most controversial topic imaginable, the issue under discussion was abortion. On a Catholic campus. Imagine that. I wrote early in September... Read more

“Truthiness” and the Incarnation

Last updated on: December 4, 2022 at 7:30 am By Vance Morgan

In 2016, the Oxford Dictionary named “post-truth” as its word of the year, an adjective defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” I can’t imagine what happened in 2016 that would have cause them to make that choice. Those of us who pine for the good old Comedy Central days of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” followed by “The Colbert Report”... Read more

An Advent Wish: Peace Be to You

Last updated on: December 5, 2022 at 1:13 pm By Vance Morgan

Advent began last Sunday. For many reasons, Advent is my favorite season of the liturgical year and I have often written over the past decade about the various ways in which Advent fits both my understanding of my Christian faith and my personality perfectly. This year, Advent promises to be somewhat different, since for reasons both professional and personal I am currently on an open-ended hiatus/sabbatical/time out from regular church attendance. I’ve given a sermon during Advent each of the... Read more

Living the Social Gospel: Your faith is not just about you

Last updated on: November 27, 2022 at 4:20 pm By Vance Morgan

In the interdisiplinary and team-taught honors course I am teaching in this academic year, we are closing the semester with considerations of important events, movements, and texts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The topic for seminar yesterday was Christian responses to social upheaval, particularly the social gospel. Among other texts, the students read Pope Leo XIII’s influential 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum and the introduction to Walter Rauschenbusch’s 1917 book A Theology for the Social Gospel. Rauschenbusch was... Read more

Happy Advent–Stay Awake!

Last updated on: November 27, 2022 at 9:35 am By Vance Morgan

Happy New Year! Today is the First Sunday of Advent, the first day of the new liturgical year. That’s Year One in the Book of Common Prayer daily readings, and Year A for the Sunday and Feast Day Lectionary, if you are keeping score at home. Although I have now spent well over half of my life as an Episcopalian, as a born and raised Baptist I still find all of this liturgical and lectionary stuff just as fascinating and... Read more

Get Thee Behind Me, Santa!

Last updated on: November 21, 2022 at 1:14 pm By Vance Morgan

Today is Black Friday, on my shortlist of candidates for the stupidest day of the year. Over the past few weeks I have needed on occasion to visit our local Lowe’s for bird food, leaf and lawn bags, and other autumn-related items. Since before Halloween, autumn leaf-control tools and accessories have been competing with mass quantities of the worst that commercial Christmas has to offer. Fake trees, gaudy and tasteless lawn decorations and tree ornaments have taken over the right... Read more

So What are YOU Thankful For This Year?

Last updated on: November 22, 2022 at 10:29 am By Vance Morgan

I have a Facebook acquaintance, a fellow graduate of St. John’s College, who posts five things she is thankful for every morning. I admire this and am always glad when I bump into her daily post on those mornings that I’m on Facebook as well. It is a practice that I have told myself many times that I need to develop, but have so far have failed to do. But as we approach the best holiday of the year, let... Read more

Living Life Forwards and Understanding it Backwards

Last updated on: November 19, 2022 at 1:58 pm By Vance Morgan

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. Soren Kierkegaard One of my duties on campus this semester is as the co-chair of a national search for the person who, when hired, will be the second most important faculty member on campus, second only to the Provost. It’s a daunting assignment—I’ve told people that I’m essentially co-chairing the search for the person who will be my boss’s boss. The President and Provost told my co-chair and... Read more

In Honor of Michael Gerson

Last updated on: November 18, 2022 at 11:20 am By Vance Morgan

I was saddened to hear this morning of the death of Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson at the age of 58. Gerson was a speechwriter for former President George W. Bush, including several memorable post-9/11 speeches. I often used a Gerson essay as the focus of a post on this blog. That includes an essay from November 2019–“Noah and His Children: Bad News for White Evangelical Christians”–which has become the most viewed post in the 10+ year history of this... Read more

What I Have Learned From Our Blackberry Bush

Last updated on: November 16, 2022 at 12:51 pm By Vance Morgan

It is mid-November; the leaves on the large oak tree in the yard diagonally behind us have fallen, 90% of them in our back yard. That means that this weekend, weather permitting, will be at least partially dedicated to back yard rather and trimming. Part of the trimming will involve our blackberry bush, a plant that has been both a blessing and a problem for several years. A number of years ago, Jeanne returned from a weekend with a friend... Read more