I run most every day on the Mill Creek Trail. Most days I can make it five or six miles along Mill Creek on a paved pathway made for bikers and foot traffic. Late this spring I was running one afternoon, and we had just had several days of rain. I was crossing through a low Meadow with a bridge over the creek that runs right alongside the railroad tracks. For about two hundred yards the trail is flanked by... Read more
I confess that I learned an extremely important lesson last night: If you eat Golden Grahams with m&ms, they taste almost exactly like smores (only without the mess). Amazing. I confess that this is a revelation that is certain to change my life for the better. I confess that Aaron Sorkin is my favorite living American writer of any genre. He’s just that good. The Newsroom is really fun to watch and I’m glad we signed up for a free... Read more
I have been thinking about the ten books every Christian should read. I’ve been composing the list in my head, and it’s harder than you think. You need qualifiers. Here are mine: broad subject range, deep but not obscure, non-fiction (with one exception), focused on discipleship and the Christian story, fit more in the theological realm, not biblical studies, philosophy, or spirituality. This is not my list of the all-time greatest, nor is it my ten favorites. This is the... Read more
The Suttle family is on vacation right now, actually more of a stay-cation. We’re sticking close to home this year and doing some work on our house. We haven’t touched our spare bedroom since we moved in ten years ago and the room could use some care. So my project for the vacation has been to completely redo the room from a spare bedroom and convert it into a study room for the family. Every day I get up, run,... Read more
I confess that I’m on week two of my working vacation. I hope this week is more vacation and less working. I confess that I cannot begin to understand what makes a person walk into a movie theater to kill and injure complete strangers for no apparent reason. I confess that I immediately try to find somebody to blame: I blame our lawmakers. They should be held responsible that there is no federal assault weapons ban. I blame the gun... Read more
I have a friend who is working with students this summer and she’s been given a topic on which she is supposed to speak: How do we know the Bible is true? It’s a tough question to be sure, and if something inside doesn’t at least resist the question a little bit, then we’re not seeing all that is at stake in answering. My friend asked me to visit with her about it, and I began to give it some... Read more
Hey friends, I’m putting this post up to let everyone know that my 2nd book has officially been released. The book is called Public Jesus. The book is meant to help churches and people to have a healthy discussion about politics in an election year. Politics is really just an ongoing dialogue – sometimes more like a struggle, fight, war, or massacre – about how we will organize the societies in which we live. In the book I’m trying to... Read more
I confess that I am officially on vacation for the next few weeks – really more of a stay-cation, which is not my favorite. I confess that I’ll be doing projects around the house for most of the three weeks, starting with a new study room for the boys. I further confess that this will be somewhat of a working vacation – as there are just things I need to stay on top of. Nevertheless, vacation means lots of time... Read more
Ross Douthat wrote an interesting article for The New York Times yesterday called, “Can Liberal Christianity be Saved?” in which he criticized the sort of liberal Christianity epitomized by Bishop Spong and the Episcopal Church. It’s definitely worth reading. Douthat is the author of Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, in which he makes a similar argument: Everything was much better in the 50s, but the 60s ruined everything (especially if you are powerful white male). His article from yesterday... Read more
I’ve got a new article up at Sojourners that you can read here. Here’s an excerpt of 4 helpful hints on how to talk about politics in an election year with your church community without hurting/killing each other. 1. Love the One You’re With The two most divisive words in the English language during an election cycle are: liberal and conservative. I think both of these words get a bad rap. The root of liberal is the word liberate. Liberation... Read more
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