My friend wasn’t supposed to die
“Do you know why people get together at Christmas? Because every time they do it might be the last time. Every Christmas is last Christmas.” -from Dr. Who 253, “Last Christmas,” written by Steven …
Religion
Fireworks on My Parents’ Driveway: Grace, Judgment, and a Nation at 250
Today is the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. It is our nation’s 250th birthday!! This is a momentous day. Yet I find myself sitting here with a profound and unexpected …
Get on your knees and fight like a man: Shifting from world peace to spiritual warfare in contemporary Christian music
The contemporary Christian rock group Petra dedicated an entire album to the theme of spiritual warfare when they released This Means War in 1987. With a title track that channeled John Milton’s Paradise Lost in …
Reconsidering what it means to be Pro-life in America
For over a decade, the United States of America was a dry nation. The Volstead Act was a nationwide constitutional ban on alcohol in all its forms, and while statistically, the consumption of alcohol did …
Considering everything, God chose beauty and pain
There’s a funny thing about living with chronic pain. Eventually, you get used to it. I don’t mean that it goes away. I don’t mean that it no longer hurts. But there comes a point …
Insiders until they’re not
Martin Luther stood in peril of his earthly life and possibly his eternal soul. The energetic Wittenberg firebrand challenged more than he realized when he issued debating points to the popular indulgence seller Johann Tetzel. …
Let Jesus Clean the Fish
I grew up in a non-religious Jewish home. I never opened a Bible, Old or New Testament. Never went to synagogue. Certainly never went to church. I went through undergraduate college and graduate studies living …
Transforming Culture? A Culture War v. Culture Making Question
Scot Loyd wrote a provocative piece It Seems Good to the Holy Ghost: A Defense of Progressive Christianity here on Faith on View. A reader who I know in real life asked a good question …
Should I Tell Him He’s a Racist?
Social media is fraught with challenges, not the least of which is racism. I admit that over the last few years, I have become less active on social media—part of the reason is the growth …
It seems good to the Holy Ghost: A defense of progressive Christianity
One of the unfortunate consequences of growing up as a small, skinny kid with little to no athletic talents, is that I was always picked last when participating in playground games. This happened enough that …