Billboards and Prooftexting abortion
I pass this billboard at least three or four times a week: “Thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb,” it reads, from the Revised Standard Version translation of Psalm 139, 13th verse. It makes me angry almost every…
Sunday thoughts: Homeless Jesus
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. — Hebrews 13:2 (NRSV) St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Davidson, North Carolina recently installed a statue of Jesus as a homeless…
Juxtaposition: Mozzetas and Mansions
Just a couple stories about the Catholic leadership that I came across today — together, they tell a powerful story. Changing fashions at the Vatican… “Cardinals Start To Copy Pope’s Simple Style”, Daniela Petroff, Associated Press, February 20, 2014 Will…
Hermeneutics & HJR-3
I’m working on a post to recap what was said during yesterday’s Senate Rules Committee hearing on HJR-3, which would enshrine discrimination against LGBT Hoosiers in our state’s constitution. But I wanted to comment on a specific religious idea that…
MLK, John Lewis, and transforming guns into plowshares
Over the last two months, I’ve written – then deleted – a half a dozen posts about guns and violence. I just can’t seem to find the right words. Every day I sit at my desk and see a small…
Ohio school district promotes non-religious Christianity
Yet another example of Christians reducing Jesus to a cultural symbol, drained of any religious or theological context: school administrators in Ohio are refusing to remove a copy of a famous religious painting from a public middle school. In this…
Colbert explains why the cross is secular
The Colbert Report: Symbol-Minded (October 13, 2009) I referenced the Salazar v Buono case the other day – here’s Stephen Colbert explaining why Scalia was right to argue that the cross is a non-religious symbol marking the place of the…
Bill O’Reilly and the fight to secularize Christianity
Last week, Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly insisted that Christianity was not, in fact, a religion, but rather a philosophy. That prompted this righteously funny Even if the ingredients get the legal, it’s common to take that vendors dispensed in…
An open letter of apology to my LDS friends & neighbors
To all my LDS friends & acquaintances: I’m sorry. The slurs, lies, and general misrepresentations of your faith over the past few years have been disheartening. In both the Republican primaries and in the general election, people across the political…
