Goodness in the Midst of Evil

Last updated on: March 16, 2025 at 3:16 pm By Vance Morgan

Regular readers of this blog know that Jeanne and I are incurable readers of mystery novels, preferably by authors who write continuing series that develop central and tangential characters from novel to novel. Our current obsession is the Bruno, Chief of Police series by Martin Walker. The series is set in a small town in southwestern France; the series is well-written, contains compelling characters, and introduces the reader to a cultural and culinary world that Jeanne and I are completely... Read more

Lent: Walking on the Downslope of God

Last updated on: March 16, 2025 at 7:27 am By Vance Morgan

0 Comments

I’ve made a big deal over the dozen-plus years of this blog’s existence of why Lent is my least favorite liturgical season. How I washed the ashes off my forehead immediately after leaving my first Ash Wednesday service in my twenties. How Lent often turns into a season of performance art–look how holy I can be for 40 days. But not this year–Lent seems very appropriate this time around. In a recent episode of her podcast “Everything Happens,” Kate Bowler... Read more

A Return to the Problem of Evil–Part One

Last updated on: March 13, 2025 at 2:31 pm By Vance Morgan

0 Comments

This week is Spring Break at my college–a week I am using to catch up on rest, grading, and to plan for the second half of the semester. In one of my ethics classes we ended with a cliffhanger in our last class just before break. We are in the early classes of a unit called “Does Ethics Have Anything to Do with God?”; the text for the day was an interview between a theist philosopher and an atheist philosopher.... Read more

What Does “Conversion” Mean?

Last updated on: March 10, 2025 at 1:57 pm By Vance Morgan

0 Comments

Conversion is an odd phenomenon. I’ve often observed that those who convert, who ”tum around” radically in some aspect of their lives, tend to embrace their newly adopted beliefs and behaviors with a sense of urgency and commitment that can border on fanaticism. Thus those who quit smoking become front line enforcers in the “No Smoking” brigade, those who cut caffeine (or sugar, or anything significant) out of their diet will regale those of us who have not quit with... Read more

A Lenten Time Change–How are you doing?

Last updated on: March 7, 2025 at 5:52 pm By Vance Morgan

0 Comments

For many of us, Daylight Saving Time began this morning at 2:00 am. This year’s version of “spring forward.” I’m going to go out on a limb and embrace the controversy that I know is to come: I like time changes. I like changing to standard time in the late fall, with nightfall earlier each day as we inch toward the winter solstice. For entirely different reasons, I appreciate springing forward on the night DST begins (even though we lose... Read more

Helping to Repair a Broken World

Last updated on: March 2, 2025 at 5:32 pm By Vance Morgan

0 Comments

I love the liturgy and prayer book of the Episcopal Church (which I’ve been doing on and off for 40 years), but I’ve encountered a couple of things at the Lutheran church with Jeanne lately that I greatly appreciate. For instance, the church she attends begins with this confession of sin: Merciful God, you speak blessing and compassion into the world. Forgive us for the ways we act with judgment, cruelty, or indifference. We ignore the needs of our neighbors;... Read more

Prayer and the Middle Voice: A Different Way to Speak to God

Last updated on: March 5, 2025 at 12:06 pm By Vance Morgan

0 Comments

Over the past several months I have occasionally accompanied Jeanne to a local Lutheran church where has been a regular for a while. They are in between pastors; the interim pastor is a “retired” Lutheran minister who stepped into the void which in many churches can take a long time to fill. Pastor Dan is a gifted sermonizer, courageous in his public commitment to justice, and a person whom I intend to get to know better over the coming weeks.... Read more

When God Is Silent: N.T. Wright on Lament and Faith

Last updated on: March 3, 2025 at 12:31 pm By Vance Morgan

0 Comments

When the Spirit Groans In a recent episode of one of my favorite podcasts, “Everything Happens,” Kate Bowler interviewed one of the great Christian theologians of his generation, N. T. Wright. I’ve always thought of Wright as important, but a bit too conservative for my taste theologian. In my Easter blog post last year, I wrote the following: According to New Testament scholar and theologian N. T. Wright, “The practical, theological, spiritual, ethical, pastoral, political, missionary, and hermeneutical implications of... Read more

Longing to be Whole: A Transfiguration Sunday Reflection

Last updated on: February 28, 2025 at 11:46 am By Vance Morgan

0 Comments

This coming Sunday is Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Each of the synoptic gospels, including today’s lectionary reading from Matthew, tells essentially the same story. Jesus takes his inner circle of Peter, James, and John to the top of a mountain where suddenly Jesus has a conversation with Moses and Elijah, while “his face shone like the sun and his clothes became dazzling white.” The disciples are understandably frightened, but Peter still... Read more

What is the Best Proof for the Existence of God?

Last updated on: February 22, 2025 at 11:45 am By Vance Morgan

0 Comments

Man is in his actions and practices, as well as in his fictions, essentially a story-telling animal. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue I run into issues related to storytelling all the time on this blog. Although the name of the 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... Read more