[UPDATE: The young woman who wrote the letter below has responded to my answer of it. You can read that response here.] This week I received a letter that read: Hi John! First of all, I’ve been an avid follower of your work for the past few months, so I’m very excited to write my first letter to you. Compared to all the serious issues that you cover, this one may seem quite trivial. Nevertheless, it’s been nagging me for... Read more
This new book o’ mine/ours is now available in paperback. (Sorry if earlier yesterday you saw here a longish post about UNFAIR being on sale that was … well, a raw draft no one was supposed to see. I accidentally hit the PUBLISH instead of the DRAFT button—right before leaving the house to go for a walk. Drats! That’ll teach me to ever exercise and/or leave the house. Anyway, that’s what that was.) Read more
So at the conclusion of my last post (Good Friends, or Socially Maladjusted Cretins?), I promised to offer a thought or two around the idea that it’s possible to minimize, if not eradicate, the degree to which others can make you feel bad about yourself. (Sorry I didn’t get to that yesterday, which turned out to be a complete freak of a day.) So. About the proper philosophy to recall and adapt whenever someone is, or is trying to, make... Read more
Here’s a letter recently in: Dear John, First of all, your posts on all things Christian has me hooked as a fan; reading them is always enlightening. Which is why I want to share something with you. (more…) Read more
“And isn’t that what God wants? For us to be successful? For our identity to be found in such success: family, security, a nice home and rewarding career? Surely God is blessing us for what we do to better our loved ones and ourselves.” (more…) Read more
Last week a reader sent me this email. Its subject line was “Trying not to hate myself for being gay.” (more…) Read more
Another kid has been bullied into killing himself. His name is Jacob Rogers. He went to Cheatham County Central High School, in Ashland City, TN. Apparently he’d been being pretty severely bullied for four years. It got so bad that around Thanksgiving he quit going to school. A friend of Jacob’s told reporters, “He started coming home his senior year, saying ‘I don’t want to go back. Everyone is so mean. They call me a faggot, they call me gay,... Read more
A writer named Ruthie, who runs a blog called Fish Out of Water: The Life and Times of a Gay Girl in the Midwest, has written a review of my book UNFAIR. Her review begins with: I’m not trying to exaggerate, but anyone who reads this book and still has a hard heart towards gay people defended by a christian worldview, I would seriously question the existence of their soul, conscience, heart or ability to reason. I don’t know Ruthie,... Read more
In the comments thread to my post, Tell Me, Christian, That You Hear This Boy, I attracted, like a cockroach to a cinnamon roll, a troll. This particular troll was keen on making public the point that Evan Hurst, from Truth Wins Out, had proven, via some comments he left on a blog post two years ago, that he hates religion, and thinks the whole idea of God is, at best, exceedingly lame. Here are some excerpts of what Evan... Read more
I’m not much of a fighter. Like just about everyone else in the world, I don’t at all enjoy conflict. When I was eight years old, my dad tried to teach me how to fight. In classic 50’s-dad fashion, he never paid any attention to me—and suddenly he wanted to turn me into Floyd Patterson. With that in mind he took me into the backyard. “C’mon, son,” he said. “Hold your fists up like this.” His fists in my face... Read more
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