evangelicals
What Stage of Faith Are You In?
One of my favorite subscriptions is a weekly called The Spong Newsletter. It’s distributed by ProgressiveChristianity.org, which I suspect is on the Forbidden to Read List for some Christian sects. On March 9, David Felten, a Methodist pastor with a congregation in Fountain Hills, Arizona, published “How to Repeal and Replace Christianity’s Addiction to ‘Fake … Read more
How the Early Church Got Rid of Jesus
Happy Belated Ascension Day. This always happens forty days after Easter and this year was on Thursday May 25. Many Christians don’t know anything about an ascension. Interestingly, neither Paul nor the authors of Mark, Matthew, Peter, or John ever mention it. Only Luke and Acts (written by the same author) allude to such an … Read more
Who Was the World’s Most Famous Oenologist?
I suspect some of my readers aren’t quite so sure about the word oenologist. How does one say an o and an e together? Is it pronounced o, then enologist? Do folks just forget the o sound and simply say or write enologist? I do the latter. It’s easier! Anyway, an enologist studies and masters … Read more
Neutered Old Men
A friend gave me What Pope Francis Really Said (Servant Press, 2016). Interesting book! Now, mind you, I like Pope Francis. He’s a breath of fresh air and an inspiration, especially compared to the last two popes who were trying to move the church back to the fourteenth century. However, for me, the jury is … Read more
Are Christians Cannibals?
In the early church, when the Followers of Jesus had diverged from Judaism (about 88 CE), they gained the reputation of being cannibals. They were a mysterious group. They met in secret places like catacombs and had strange signs and signals such as a fish—in Greek, ichthus. If two people met on a road, one … Read more
Today I Went to Heaven. It Was Hell Getting There!
In March 2017, Annie and I were in China cruising on the Yangtze River. Every day we disembarked and saw fascinating things. The day before we left the river for the city of Xi’an and the terracotta warriors, we took a short bus ride to a four-century-old Buddhist pagoda. It was next to very high … Read more
Unbelievable! Life, Almost 4 Billion Years Ago
Scientists have found what they claim are the oldest-known traces of life on earth, embedded in some Canadian rocks. The article states the fossils are really only 3.7 billion years old, not 4 billion—but what’s a few hundred million years! Scientists are still investigating this, so I’m sure there is someone out there ready to … Read more
Can Someone Please Help Me?
Someone must have an answer. I need one, quickly. Maybe one of our many Evangelical Christian (EC) relatives can help me. The polls suggest that over 90 percent of ECs voted for Trump to be the forty-fifth president of our country. Here’s my first question: What did you honestly think when Mr. Trump, for many … Read more
I’m Falling in Love—with John
I have been terrified of John for some fifty-five years. He’s complicated, threatening, outrageous at times, secretive, and almost unintelligible. I wanted to have nothing to do with him. He was poison. Then a strange thing happened. My wife and I had been working with inmates at the local jail on Tuesday afternoons, but the … Read more