In a used book store in DC a couple of weeks ago, I found a very cheap book in the philosophy section by Spanish writer Miguel de Unamuno called Tragic Sense of Life. Unamuno wrote at the beginning of the 20th century during the time when his country fell under the tragic dictatorship of Franco. He was a devout Catholic who watched in horror as the Catholicism around him was perverted into fascism. The description on the back cover that... Read more
I suck at New Year’s resolutions so usually I don’t even try. But my buddy Zach Hoag wrote something about the level of nastiness in the progressive Christian blogosphere that has made me reflect on how I can contribute to making a better online conversation. So here are five things I wanted to challenge myself to do and any other bloggers as well. (more…) Read more
I’ve been in a pissy mood today, and it’s for a lame reason. I’m tired of reading other bloggers share how successful their year has been and realizing that I’ve been leap-frogged by a whole lot of people who started after I did and are now on their way to lapping Rachel Held Evans herself. And then I’m getting congratulated for the one post that I wrote that kind of viralized in which I wrote down a few quotes from... Read more
The post-evangelical memoir has exploded as a genre in the wake of Rachel Held Evans’ 2010 Evolving in Monkey Town: How A Girl Who Knew All The Answers Learned to Ask The Questions. Since that time, an industry of thirty-something post-evangelical memoirists has blossomed. And it seems like 2013 was the year that they all got published (or at least read by me). I read four post-evangelical memoirs this year that were each very different: Erika Rae’s Devangelical, Chris Haw’s... Read more
One of the most obnoxious things about the culture wars is the way that they have bastardized the concept of “holiness.” The most typical way this happens is for someone to say something like “God may be love but He is also holy” as though love by itself has no backbone and makes God into a pathetic doormat, while God’s holiness is what gives Him the fortitude to be mean to people. Or “Because God is holy, He cannot tolerate... Read more
Erick and Marlise Munoz were both paramedics. They were both around life-and-death situations on a daily basis. After Marlise went through her brother’s tragic death, she told Erick that if anything ever happened to her, she didn’t want a machine to keep her body alive. Sure enough, the unimaginable happened. Marlise had a pulmonary embolism that left her brain-dead on November 26th. She was also pregnant. Erick wants to let nature take it course, but Texas has a law that... Read more
This Christmas, I stumbled over a verse, Luke 2:39, that I had never noticed before: “When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.” Here’s the problem. According to Matthew 2:13-15, Mary and Joseph have to flee to Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod and in order to fulfill the prophecy, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.” Unless we make a ridiculously contrived... Read more
It was so great to fast from my blog over Advent. The only thing I regret about it is that I was offline when the Duck Drama hit the fan so I didn’t get to ride the tidal wave to a bazillion hits like all the other eager bloggers (all of whom opened with obligatory apologies for writing about it). I presume that everything I have to say has already been said, but since we’re traveling today, I needed a... Read more
Emmanuel. God with us. That is the meaning of Christmas. Jesus was born to show us God’s solidarity with us. Specifically, he was born in a manger to show God’s solidarity with people who are born in mangers. Why was it necessary for Jesus to come to Earth? Christian theologians tend to answer this question in the abstract, saying something like humanity had been created in the image of God, but God’s image has been corrupted by sin, so God... Read more
I keep on forgetting to post my sermon podcasts. Isaiah 11 says that the messiah’s “delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.” I’ve blogged a lot about the fear of the Lord in the past and how many people completely misunderstand what it means. So here’s what I had to say about it on December 8th. Read more
Mercy Not Sacrifice
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In