Just a quick note to let you know that my good friend Jerran Hill and I have been working on a new podcast that I’d like to share with you! The focus of the podcast is pretty much what the focus of this blog has been through the years. Each week will examine a cultural…
I was driving through a small town in Alabama yesterday and couldn’t help but notice the truck in front of me proudly exhibiting a Confederate flag. It had to be over twenty feet wide. For a split-second I wanted to confront the driver, calling out his egregious cloth monument. But, being at least slightly a…
Just the other day I saw an quote from a prominent preacher that went something like this: “If you have a problem with Genesis 1, you’ll have a problem with the whole bible.” A few things popped into my mind immediately. First, I honestly don’t understand how you can read any of the bible without…
10 You people hate anyone who challenges injustice and speaks the whole truth in court. 11 You have oppressed the poor and robbed them of their grain. And so you will not live in the fine stone houses you build or drink wine from the beautiful vineyards you plant. 12 I know how terrible your sins are and how many…
A Bit of Background Up to that point I had only examined my own views regarding anything remotely political in passing. The majority of my thought had been concentrated on things holy. Theological. Important. Oh, and baseball. But as I sat in my seminarian apartment examining my inherited view of the death penalty for an…
The story of Jesus driving out a herd of demons into a herd of pigs has always fascinated me. Matthew, Mark and Luke all three record the story or a variation of it, so apparently it stood out as remarkable and in some way essential to the gospel story. And while the story in and…
This past weekend, Neo-Nazi demonstrators- including a number of terrorists armed militia-style gathered under 150 miles from the nation’s capital. They assembled to protest the city of Charlottesville’s decision to cease the practice of venerating a well-known leader of a violent contingent that once attempted to destroy the United States of America. Only after 1.2…
The plan was to drink from a brook- not a spring, not a river, not a lake. The plan to eat was even more dubious- the ravens have been commanded to bring the food. Perfect.
The church is the body of Christ, not as a metaphor, but in reality. –Dietrich Bonhoeffer I used to have high hopes for the church. Idealistic even. But a curious thing happened to me on the way to idealizing the church. I spent some time in it. And I became jaded. I suspect in this…
A prophet is not without dishonor except in his own hometown. If I ever get put in charge of making editorial changes in the bible, you can bet that the first story that would hit the cutting room floor is the story of Jesus’ rejection in his hometown. The story is a serious downer. And…
