Only the echoes of my mind<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cIf Jesus is about anything, it\u2019s that love trumps rules.\u201d "Time will tell whether these evangelical colleges are on the right side of history. But I\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/02\/25\/only-the-echoes-of-my-mind\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Only the echoes of my mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cIf Jesus is about anything, it\u2019s that love trumps rules.\u201d "Time will tell whether these evangelical colleges are on the right side of history. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. 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{"id":6417,"date":"2012-02-25T01:37:40","date_gmt":"2012-02-25T06:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=6417"},"modified":"2012-02-25T01:37:40","modified_gmt":"2012-02-25T06:37:40","slug":"only-the-echoes-of-my-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/02\/25\/only-the-echoes-of-my-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Only the echoes of my mind"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201cIf Jesus is about anything, it\u2019s that love trumps rules<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTime will tell whether these evangelical colleges are on the right side of history. But I can\u2019t help thinking that 50 years from now they will look back and wonder what the fuss was about<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though we imposed our religious views on others when we pushed through an amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting sale and manufacture of alcohol nearly 100 years ago, we did not insist our religious liberty was infringed when Prohibition was repealed<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c Playing strip poker with the big-wigs in Christianity Today<\/em> is a game I no longer wish to play<\/a>.\u201d (via<\/em> MPT<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so, with burning tension, my 13 year-old self sat down on the brick flowerbed in front of his house, turned his eyes to heaven and earnestly prayed, \u2018 Jesus, don\u2019t let me die before I\u2019ve had sex!<\/a>\u2018\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour belief that an outside agent reigning you in is necessary for preventing you from becoming a shameless, immoral, out-of-control pig only means that somewhere along the line someone taught you that you are a shameless, immoral, out-of-control pig<\/a>. But you\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd while I knew there were hardliners who would disagree with her, including the woman who showed me fetuses and told me horror stories in church, those people weren\u2019t there for me when I was scared and lonely and embarrassed<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c I am an American.<\/a> Virginia is my home.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"