(Credit: screen grab from Fox40 report) Confession: I didn’t realize robocalls were still a thing. It’s probably because I haven’t had a landline in years. I think I do recall a robocall a while back that started off with the sound of a ship horn and continued with the promise of a free cruise if I just listened to a brief presentation, but I hung too quickly to claim my prize. It was the last robocall I’ve received. And it was... Read more

(Credit: the rik pics, Flickr Creative Commons) What will the world think if they see us fighting like this? You’re driving people away from the Church. Tearing down our brothers and sisters makes people want nothing do with with the church. As they say, if I had a dollar for every time one these shame bombs was dropped in the comment section of a Christian blog or tweeted out or left in a Facebook thread, I’d have enough money to finally fulfill my... Read more

(Credit: Wikipedia) I have no idea who I’m going to vote for in November. I mean, should he win his party’s nomination, I obviously won’t be voting for Donald Trump because I have a soul and I believe in things like human decency and the crazy notion that racism and bigotry aren’t virtues to be embraced. I also definitely won’t be voting for Trump-lite either. I’m talking about Ted Cruz, the man who just can’t bring himself to say a... Read more

(Credit: Larry O. Wright Sr, Facebook) There are 2 insidious lies that, perhaps more than any of the other misinformation and propaganda out there, stop the gun control debate before it can even begin. The first is the myth that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. The second is the assumption that a commitment to nonviolence means a commitment to doing nothing in the face of evil. Both lies reveal... Read more

(Credit: Wikipedia Commons) Everybody has their list of New Year’s resolutions meant to inspire you to do great things in the days to come. Most of them are pretty much the same: lose weight, get a better job, become a better person, blah blah blah. You know the drill. But let’s be honest. You’re not gonna keep any of those resolutions. Sure, you’ll start them and give them the old college try…until sometime in February when you remember why you weren’t... Read more

Remember a few months ago when Creflo Dollar tried to raise $65 million for a private jet he claimed he desperately needed? His personal petition was quickly taken down amid a firestorm of condemnation from the Christian world. No worries, though. His church board had his back. Shortly after Dollar was forced to pull down his personal plea for cash, the board of World Changers Church International announced that they would be purchasing the plane anyway. Now, I’ve always assumed... Read more

(Credit: Wikipedia) I’m often asked what my plans are now that I’m done with graduate school. Since “I do a lot of blogging” makes it sound like I moved back into my parents’ basement and “I don’t know” sounds even worse, I usually tell people I’m doing doctoral work in the often overlooked fields of diaper changing and bottle making. I originally began my doctoral studies by focusing on cloth diapers, but once another “case study” was added to my... Read more

(Credit: Stevan Sheets, Flickr Creative Commons) This week, Wheaton College placed associate professor Larycia Hawkins on leave after she posted a picture of herself wearing a hijab on Facebook, explaining that she was doing so because she wanted to “stand in human solidarity with my Muslim neighbor because we are formed of the same primordial clay. She also said, “I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week,... Read more

One of the things I really enjoyed about my time at Yale was the opportunity to read the non-canonical writings of the early Church; that is the works of the early Church fathers that didn’t make the cut for the New Testament. It’s not like that opportunity is in any way exclusive to Yale. I just hadn’t had the chance to read many, if any, of the early Church fathers’ works or even really made much effort to to do... Read more