When I first studied the Gospels, I noticed what most everyone does — Matthew, Mark, and Luke are pretty similar, while John deviates wildly from the other three. This is well-known, and it’s the reason Matthew, Mark, and Luke are collectively known as the Synoptic Gospels — they all give […]
Now that I’m an ex-Christian, sometimes it feels like the veil has come off, and I’m able to see things more clearly than before. One of those things is just when America became ex-Christian itself. When I was a Christian, I used to think that America’s ex-Christian phase kicked off […]
At the 2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards, “Generation Award” recipient Chris Pratt delivered what is being hailed as a tour de force of subversive Christian preaching. You can see it here. In it Pratt lays down nine rules for the next generation. He starts with a throwaway joke (“Breathe…if […]
Now that a half-hearted decision of the Supreme Court has come down in favor of religious freedom and individual conscience, there are many people digging through the Bible wondering if Christian businesspersons who refuse to service gay weddings are just being bigoted or are actually following their faith — the […]
I saw a brief but interesting exchange on Twitter yesterday between Chelsea Clinton and someone who had the absolute douchebaggery to tweet, “Death to @ChelseaClinton and @HillaryClinton!” And make no mistake: That is douchebaggery. No matter how much you might not like a public figure, calling for that person’s death, even […]
I once had a friend who watched religious programming heavily – particularly the preaching ministries on Daystar or whatever other Christian channels were available. I used to listen to the radio versions of some of these shows long ago. They’re pretty educational at first, but after a while, they’re just […]
If you’ve read anything about Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch‘s dissent in the case of the truck driver who left his trailer behind rather than freeze to death [PDF link], and you’re wondering, “How could Gorsuch be such a cold, heartless bastard as to want to side with the truck company […]
I saw something disturbing in the news today. No, nothing Donald Trump tweeted. Rather, the Parker Brothers game “Monopoly” is retiring one of its signature game pieces: The thimble. It was ousted by popular vote, so this was hardly an authoritarian or fascist move by Parker Brothers – sorry, I […]
This last U.S. election was a real joy, wasn’t it? And by that I mean it was the finest example of people clawing one another’s eyes out that I’ve ever seen. Surprisingly, a lot of that clawing went on within political parties. The Democratic Party just about fractured in half over […]
I’ll never forget the time I read a heartfelt blog post by a friend of mine and told him, “That was an awesome post! Oh, just FYI, you’ve got a spelling error [here] and a punctuation error [here],” only for him to reply, “That’s your response? I bleed my soul […]