spare your face the razor
*Author’s Note: For maximum poignancy, please listen to The Oh Hello’s The Truth is a Cave repeatedly whilst reading. You’ll thank me later. A few mornings ago, as I stood staring groggily into the...
View Articleit floats (or what it’s like being on Satan’s payroll)
Whenever I’m asked to describe my job as a professional Christian, I usually stammer something along the lines of: “I talk about God for a living.” Or, if I’m feeling especially cynical: “It’s mostly...
View ArticleIt’s embarrassing, but it doesn’t have to be (being Baptist, that is)
Hello there! I just recently realized (in the midst of writing blog after blog after endless blog) that I don’t think we’ve met before (aside of course, from you mom! I promise I’ll come get my mail...
View ArticleHow Seminaries Fail 2: “this time it’s personal”
Recently, pastor, author, and professor Brett Younger penned a thought provoking essay outlining a few of the ways in which seminaries fail. Aside from listing the more obvious shortcomings of any...
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“I hope this goes viral” and other things destroying human civilization
You probably didn’t notice, but just in case you did- (or, in the extremely likely chance this blog GOES VIRAL AND PEOPLE I WILL NEVER MEET SPEND SOMEWHERE IN THE BALLPARK OF 1 MINUTE SKIMMING ITS...
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let’s get apocalyptic, baby
www.flickr.com/photos/bo47/ These days it feels as if the only 2 things I’m seemingly very good at are: watching + evaluating. I watch TV, the rattling, odorous recycling truck every other Wednesday...
View Articlewonder
Now that I’ve been at this for well over a year, I’m beginning to realize a few things about publishing my thoughts for people to skim on the internet: 1) It is most definitely as glamorous as you...
View Articleon she bears + self discovery
“(Elisha) went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go away, bald head! Go away, bald head!” When he turned...
View ArticleI don’t think you know what that means
A popular misconception about professional Christianity is that most of us with business cards reading “pastor” love talking about church. I can’t tell you how many breathless conversations I’ve had...
View Articleblessed are the barely there
Believing in God is hard. If anyone tells you otherwise they’re lying, or they’ve been frozen for eons under a housing development in Southern California like a Cro-magnon Brendan Frazier in Encino...
View Articledisinterested religion + the art of unemployment
Occasionally, there are days-and even moments within days-when heavy clouds pull in front of the sun, blocking its light from view and casting everything in the empty parking lot outside my office...
View Articlethe speck is also the log.
I’m a racist. I tried beginning this conversation differently, for instance by talking about how incredibly difficult hearing about the events unfolding in Ferguson has been, but that route’s been...
View ArticleFlesh is the new Word.
Over the course of my quickly fading 20s I’ve discovered a few truths about existence: 1) My crutch like belief-as a poorly complected 17 year old-that my skin would finally even out in my late...
View Articlethe next right thing.
Quite often, over the course of numerous conversations unfolding inside the circled wagons of wounded American Evangelicalism, there develops this almost liturgically repetitious refrain amongst the...
View Articleblessings.
Ahem, (clears throat, drinks water, begins.) Blessed are the persecuted mega-church majorities, for they own most of the world already. Blessed are those who mourn the loss of Christianity’s cultural...
View Articlecynicism + the art of resurrection.
If you’ve been reading my work for any length of time (and once again, I recycle this joke only because it’s too good not to: thanks Mom!) you’ve likely at one point or another come to at least 2...
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on arks and alienation: or why building a 70 million dollar boat in the...
These days it doesn’t take much to leave me feeling dismayed and embarrassed by the public image of the faith to which I’ve tethered my hopes, fears, dreams, and abilities to pay my mortgage. Which, is...
View Articlei’m not rob bell.
I had this somewhat obvious epiphany the other day. I’m not, nor have I ever been, Rob Bell. I know, I know, groundbreaking. I’d probably give this one a “discovering you have enough change in your...
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the jar is always smaller than the sky.
As a kid growing up in East Tennessee, there were few better ways to enjoy an oppressively sticky late summer evening, than attempting to catch lightnin’ bugs*. (*NOTE: I realize some of you may not be...
View Articleon mega-churches, millennials and modernism.
In my hometown there is a church. This church has a sanctuary. A steeple. A large staff of religious professionals. A jet. A hashtag campaign for each sermon series. A fleet of boats. A “membership”...
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