Why I Can't Say Love the Sinner / Hate the Sin Anymore
I thought we just needed to try harder. Maybe we needed to focus more on loving the sinner, and less on protesting his sin. But I’m done. I can’t look my gay brother in the eye anymore and say “I love the sinner but hate the sin.” I can’t keep drawing circles in the sand. Even…
An Anthology of Madness (A Review)
“Grace is the most magnificent force on the planet, and it is not to be reckoned with. It is intangible, yet smothering. It is the only thing which must first drown us before it can rescue us.” Max is not kind to language. While some of us smoothly layer sentences into pleasing paragraphs, Max brutally…
Everything Must Go
They say that money can’t buy happiness, but that doesn’t keep me from trying. So I went to college and graduated and got a job where they give me dollars and then I exchanged all those dollars for stuff and now I’m sitting in my house surrounded by piles of stuff with no dollars. But…
When We Criticize One Another
We love to argue. With a thousand words and sarcastic asides and 140 characters slung around like projectiles in the air, we draw battle lines and come to blows. When I made up my unofficial resolutions at the start of this year, I included “don’t argue on the internet”. But I can’t seem to get…
I Don't Want To Read the Bible Anymore
It started with a small complaint. A small complaint in a big parking lot with a heavy push-broom and puddles of gravel and dust. It didn’t seem fair that He was invisible. They said that He was the most important of all, but He had the nerve to stay hidden behind mystery and space. How…
A Prayer for Memorial Day
Today we remember. We remember those who have served, who have given their lives for the freedom we so enjoy. We remember their honor, their duty, their sacrifice. We remember the families they left behind, those who have lost husbands and fathers and sons and wives and mothers and daughters. Today we pray. We pray…
Drawing Circles in the Sand
This week the Boy Scouts of America voted to no longer exclude Scouts from their ranks “on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.” In the circles of Christianity that I often frequent, the defining mantra for interaction with the LGBT community is “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” We talk of how sex…
The Day I Stopped Believing in God
By then, I was already having doubts. Sitting across the table from new friends who didn’t see any reason to believe in God, I had tried to explain to them why I did and why it mattered. But this was the real world, and in the real world “because the Bible says so” doesn’t always…
A Letter to Abercrombie
Dear Mr. Abercrombie & Fitch, Nobody likes you anymore. You messed up. You said that you only want the cool kids wearing your brand. You don’t want to sell clothes to anybody who doesn’t fit your ideal of sexiness. You said some dumb stuff, and now your image is hurting. Now there’s a video going…
The Worst Juice Cleanse Ever
Last Thursday I skipped breakfast and had pizza for lunch. I had pizza for supper too, if those stale circles of hard dough anemically sprinkled with cheese and sold shrink-wrapped and frozen can be called “pizza”. I wish I could say this sort of behavior is abnormal for me. It’s not. My diet all too…
A Picture of Freedom
Earlier this week I wrote about how the internet is full of beautiful friends that we’ve never met. Caroline is one of those friends. I love this story, and I think you will too. There’s so much of what she’s written here that resonates with my own heart. It’s about everything good and beautiful in…
Prototype (An Illustrated Review)
“I believe that somewhere, somehow, you’ve heard the music. Distant or close, you’ve heard the song of your belovedness. It’s a song of unrestrained joy, a song of hope and belonging. A song that calls you into the future. Can you even imagine what it would be like to dance the dance of children, the…
I Don't Want to be a Good Christian Anymore
God, sometimes I feel like I’m not a good Christian in Your eyes, like You’re a Father disappointed in me, frustrated, wishing I would do more, be more, and I wonder are You proud of me? Am I a good Christian? Do I make You smile? I don’t want to fail. I don’t want to…
Why I Love Barack Obama
I keep having this dream. I’m at a park, or a convention, or at the White House, and he’s there too. I wait around for the chance to talk to him for a moment. When he sees me, I hug him. I tell him that even though I don’t like all his policies and stuff,…
You Can Be Free
“Brothers and sisters, you can be free!” The words came fast and rushed up from inside my heart. I hurried to write them down, driving on the freeway scrawling nearly-unintelligible phrases on the nearest scraps of paper I could find. That was a month ago. Now I’m sitting here on this cold Wednesday morning when…
