Culture
On Growing Up in Bill Gothard's Homeschool Cult
“Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater!” they say. I hear it over and over again. “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. There was some good and some bad. Just take what good you can and leave the rest.” I don’t know how. This is what happens when your definitions of “good”…
Read MoreWhen We Hang Millstones on Children
I want you to see this. It comes from Mary DeMuth, a friend who is bravely speaking up about the abuse she experienced, and the abuse she sees in the church. This is something that has been heavy on my heart lately – especially with the allegations surfacing about the Bill Gothard homeschool cult in which I…
Read MoreAgainst Images of Darkness
I am powerless against the darkness. I wake up in the morning sore and blurry, fumbling across Twitter while waiting for the black coffee. I see images of the darkness in the palm of my hand. Syria. Ukraine. Another black kid gunned down on our own streets. And we are powerless to stop it. The…
Read MoreWhy I Don't Care About Creation vs. Evolution Anymore
I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. And for a long time, I believed that God the Father had created heaven and earth in six literal days (for the Bible tells me so). I believed that the world was about six thousand years old, that Adam and Eve were actual…
Read MoreWhat the Christian Right Gets Wrong About Sin
In today’s dispatch from the culture wars, dozens of prominent conservative Christian leaders – including Rick Warren, Ravi Zacharias, and Wayne Grudem – have filed an amicus brief supporting Hobby Lobby in the ongoing battle over contraception. (Religion News Service) Much ink has already been spilled in this battle – about contraception, religious liberty, freedom…
Read MoreHuffPost Live: Love the Sinner Hate the Sin?
Last summer, I had a conversation that I can’t get out of my mind. It didn’t seem like it at the time, but looking back that was when I began to shift from seeing homosexuality as an “issue” to seeing people’s stories and faces instead. The next day, I wrote about “Why I Can’t Say…
Read More5 Books I Read in 2013
It seems that everybody is putting together their lists of “Top Books I Read in 2013”, but I can’t really call this that. Honestly, this is a list of all the books I read in 2013. I feel a little bit bad about that — apparently it’s a good idea to read lots of books.…
Read MoreOn Black Friday
This is not the blog post I was going to write today. I was going to write a handful of words about consumerism and greed and the big bad Black Friday and how we need to get back to a simpler way of celebrating holidays. But I would have been wrong. /// I’ve noticed something…
Read MoreThings Christians Should Stop Saying
Christians love to make lists of things that Christians need to stop saying. RELEVANT listed “20 Christianese Phrases We Really Need to Stop Saying”. Huffington Post had “6 Things Christians Should Just Stop Saying”. Jayson D. Bradley wrote “3 Phrases Christians Should Quit Relying On“. Christian Piatt rounded up “Ten Cliches Christians Should Never Use“. If…
Read MoreA Conversation with Addie Zierman about 'When We Were on Fire'
I’ve never met Addie Zierman. The world is a big place with lots of wonderful people in it, so it’s not particularly remarkable that I haven’t met everyone in person. But it is a little funny, I think, that Addie and I lived in the same town for years, graduated from the same college, and…
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