Seven years, little ones, seven years. What does seven years mean in the mystery that lies after death? Or even before it: in the far-flung eons of space and time, in a universe so vast and so old the human mind cannot comprehend it, what is a life? My thirty-one years are the fragment of …
Category: Deconstruction
Easter Lament
Oh Creator, Jehovah, Yahweh, God, Lord, whoever you are Are you the God of the lynchers or the lynched? The oppressors or the oppressed? The slavers or the enslaved? I sat in church and I heard about the sanctity of life and the firstborn of Egypt condemned to death and there were no tears for …
Jesus and John Wayne
When I started reading Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, by Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, I expected to find the book deeply interesting. What I did not expect was that I would devour the book in three days, that every reading would be undergirded by a …
Honest Anniversary
This is the year that almost did us in. I'm not supposed to say that out loud, am I? Anniversary posts on social media are supposed to be poetic and inspiring, spouses speaking of each other in glowing terms, any blemishes and flaws in the marriage carefully filtered out so that it is presented to …
The Wages of (telling kids they’re) Sin{ful}
Recently at dinner 5-year-old Sean said, “Today in chapel Ms. X took a bunch of scraps of paper and set fire to them in a bowl. And then when she showed us the bowl, there was nothing left! They were all gone!" I felt my forehead wrinkling. “Why did she do that? “To show us …
Continue reading The Wages of (telling kids they’re) Sin{ful}
The Bible and Me, Part 2
Biblical inerrancy is the belief that the Bible is without error or fault in all its teaching, or, at least, that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact.Biblical infallibility is the belief that what the Bible says regarding matters of faith and Christian practice is wholly useful and true.-Wikipedia “Inerrancy is nothing less than the affirmation …
The Bible and Me
If I had to name the most common obstacle for Christians to a life of true trust in God, it would be fear—mainly the fear of being wrong about the Bible, which is often equated with being wrong about God. - Peter Enns, The Bible Tells Me So Growing up in the PCA, I was taught …
Unfenced Easter
When I was growing up, my dad always created fun and often elaborate treasure hunts for us kids to find our Easter baskets. I’m carrying on the tradition with my children. After Sean and Muriel hunted the plastic eggs in the yard, Sean found a clue in one of them– the letters A B C …
Saturday Night Worship: A Benediction
It’s been a rough week. Nate was TDY for a few days, and in a manifestation of the curse that descends on every military family at some point during TDYs, the kids came down with a stomach bug. And then Nate came home and I got it and then Nate got it, and the whole …
The Knowledge of Good and Evil
Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. …
Meredith Muddles 