February 9, 2024

The first question I got when declaring “I am no longer a Christian” is the predictable question “Well, do you still believe in God?” This of course came up in the wake of my last two articles, “I am No Longer a Christian” and “Not a Christian Pt. II”. After I explained in those posts why a set of theological beliefs is not important or necessary for me to pursue spirituality and to leave religion behind, people seem to still... Read more

January 26, 2024

My daughter sent me this article from NPR: “Religious ‘Nones’ are now the largest single group in the U.S.”  As of 2024, the Nones make up 28% of the American population. I have identified as a None for a long time now. I am generally averse to labels, but the word “none” is probably the least offensive or stereotypical label I could adopt. This article has motivated me to make a public declaration that I no longer consider myself to be... Read more

January 12, 2024

  Matthew Doud is getting vocal and loud about the threat of White Christian Nationalism these days. I heard him just the other night on Joy Reid’s show and he said the following: “The thing that’s happened with the Republican Party is there is no division between the people that are pushing religion and the people that are pushing politics. For the Republican Party, it has become one. And it’s this White Christian nationalism that has completely occupied the Republican... Read more

December 10, 2023

Conservative & Progressive Christians Don’t Exist Once a person defines themself as a “Conservative Christian” or a “Progressive Christian” you know something is awry in their priorities. It is a deceptive use of language which mostly fools the person using the label. There is no such thing as a conservative Christian or a progressive one. The phrase defies the meaning of what being a Christian is. I can be a Christian who happens to be a conservative politically or I... Read more

December 2, 2023

It shouldn’t be this hard. Funding the government is a fundamental operation of the House of Representatives. Yet, here we are after the Republicans finally chose a Speaker, and with a slim majority of seats, they still are not able to pass a funding bill on anything. Not even the routine defense funding bill. That one is usually a slam dunk because it has large bipartisan support. It has passed every year since 1961 in a bipartisan fashion without much... Read more

October 28, 2023

No Religious Test for Office Let me be clear! I do not criticize the new House Speaker Mike Johnson because he is a Christian. I don’t care what he believes about gay rights. I don’t care what he believes about evolution. I don’t care that Speaker Johnson is a “born-again” Christian. And I don’t care what church he attends or that he prays and reads the Bible. Many politicians claim the same religious beliefs and practices. Speaker Pelosi claimed that... Read more

October 2, 2023

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.   (Matthew 28:18-20 NIV) Spreading the Gospel & the Doctrine of Discovery This utterance by Jesus has been the motivating force behind many worldwide efforts by Christians to “spread the gospel.” Evangelism is the driving force of Evangelicalism. But the definition of what exactly that gospel... Read more

September 15, 2023

The History Wars When I taught history in the 1980s, ’90s, and 2000s, I remember various conflicts over curriculum that became very heated. There were the “reading wars” of the 70s and 80s which became politicized along with the more recent “math wars,” mostly due to the Common Core standards. People drew battle lines in these conflicts and used them to promote their conservative or liberal agendas. For many it wasn’t a matter of what was best for kids, but... Read more

August 19, 2023

The Art of Detachment I have been practicing the art of detachment from religious beliefs for the past 15 years or so. After 40 years of trying to reduce my identity and so-called faith down to a set of beliefs and getting them just right, I have detached from that dead-end and death producing exercise. The result has been renewing, freeing and refreshing…in other words, I feel alive. So now that I have detached from my religious beliefs I am... Read more

June 30, 2023

Spiritual Close Encounters The benefit of social media is that we can find and friend people that we knew many years ago. Occasionally, I find a former student or colleague that I worked with in my days in the Christian School movement. I’m not always certain how some of these reunions will go because I have moved beyond my evangelical past and don’t want to send these former acquaintances into shock. Mostly, people are good with where they find me... Read more


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