Christianity
I’d Flunk Out of Seminary Today: Part 2
This is the second part of a six-part series about an imaginary journey to an Episcopal seminary where I ask hard questions about Christianity and priesthood. Without twenty-first-century answers, I may have to drop out. You can find Part 1 here. Last week, I attended an imaginary class about prayer and prayer life. I asked … Read more
I’d Flunk Out of Seminary Today: Part 1
This is the first part of a six-part series about an imaginary journey to an Episcopal seminary where I ask hard questions about Christianity and priesthood. Without twenty-first-century answers, I might have to drop out. I graduated from seminary fifty-eight years ago in a very different world. I started seminary in 1957, when the church … Read more
What to Call Me?
“Are you a Christian?” is a question I hear often because I label myself as an a-theist. That means I don’t believe in an anthropomorphic god living in a mansion above a flat earth. My answer to whether I’m a Christian is more complex than a simple yes or no. If someone asked, “Do you … Read more
Jesus the Handyman
The thrust of my ministry since the late 1980s has figuring out who the historical Jesus was. This is not easy because the New Testament mostly records the writers’ biases, not historical facts. Consequently, I’m constantly looking for information about what life was like back in Jesus’s time so I can place him into that … Read more
What’s the WOG?
I recently learned that Christianity has two WOGs. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the first WOG, which stands for the “Word of God.” I explained that even though the words sound very religious, they don’t mean anything to me because I don’t believe that God wrote the Bible. Human beings wrote it. Maybe … Read more
The Broken Record
Certain basic ideas are grounded in fact but become mired in fiction. Sometimes I feel like a broken record. I tell people a fact, but it just doesn’t register. Here are some examples: My most frequently stated fact is this: Jesus was born a Jew, lived the life of a committed Jew, and died a … Read more