I haven’t done a lot of year-end posting this year, but I wanted to take a moment and say how grateful I am to the readers of Paperback Theology. Because of your support, your engagement in the conversation, your linking to Facebook and Twitter, your sharing of ideas and passion, PT’s readership has grown like crazy this year. I only have stats since the move to Patheos in August, but total pageviews for the last five months of the year... Read more
Father Adam – a Benedictine monk who is my spiritual director – always says “God is good. People are crazy.” That sums up the year 2012. Here is my year-end confession. I confess that I am not a very good celebrator of New Year’s Eve. Growing up my family celebrated with Dick Clark on East Coast time and were usually asleep before 11:30. I confess that I haven’t seen midnight on New Year’s Eve in at least half a decade.... Read more
As an evangelical Christian I am a part of a people who have emphasized the crucifixion above everything else, even sometimes eclipsing resurrection. Incarnation (the birth of Jesus), comes in third in terms of emphasis and the teachings of Jesus brings up the rear in a distant fourth. This has been our hierarchy of emphasis when it comes to how we understand and teach about the life of Jesus Christ: Death, resurrection, birth, teaching. For most of the year, when... Read more
If you are like me, there’s no time to sit and watch Christmas movies today – which is a really sad commentary on my pace of life! So, you can do what I did: take a moment and watch the above clip from Elf, which is #2 on my list of Top 10 Christmas movies of all time. What’s your list? 1. It’s a Wonderful Life 2. Elf 3. Love Actually 4. Home Alone 5. Scrooged 6. Christmas Vacation 7.... Read more
Forget the Jelly of the Month club, this is a stroke of genius. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t think of the idea first. Zondervan has had some great money makers (The Purpose Driven Life was pretty good), but this thing has solid gold written all over it. If you are wondering what to get me for Christmas, look no further… Read more
Steve Carell and Jim Carrey in the same movie, plus Steve Buscemi to boot? This is either going to be amazing or way too over the top to be good. I can tell you that the trailer made me laugh out no less than four times. Add this to the list of movies I’m dying to see. Read more
Best recap of 2012 I’ve seen so far. Read more
When you get together with family and friends during the holidays someone will inevitably bring some pictures of their family trip, their kids doing sports, their new puppy. I’m not going to lie, it can get a little awkward. But you have never seen something as awkward as this. The first comment on Youtube said, “That is the most uncomfortable I have ever been while watching a youtube video. Amazing job.” Here’s at least one reason to laugh today: Read more
In the interest of full disclosure, the remarkable young woman in this post is my niece... Sarah Thompson will be spending her Christmas break donating part of her liver to help save a friend who is suffering from Byler’s Disease. She will forever win the “how you spending your xmas break” contest at her house. I’m amazed on several levels. First of all, I didn’t know you could do this – give part of your liver and survive it. Our bodies... Read more
Brent Strawn was on CNN yesterday talking about the Bible’s view on how to deal with grief. Last year I attended the Earle Lectures on Biblical Literature with Brent Strawn from Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Strawn is an Old Testament scholar and the lectures were amazing. I got to meet him and talk with him a little bit. I think his take here could be really helpful to anyone who is struggling right now. (BTW – if... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In