I just picked up a copy of John Caputo’s book, In Search of Radical Theology, and the following passage sort of jumped off the page: Our quasi-Augustinian confession, confessing that there is no big supernatural or transcendental something or other coming over the hill to save us, is the saving. It reminded me of something […]
Category: Suffering
The Ache of True Joy
If you’ve spent a month or more within evangelicalism you will know that Christian “self help” is a massive industry, and there is a lot of money to be made in guiding people from Point A to Point B. Whether it’s the “Five Stones to Slay Your Life’s Goliaths” or some secret formula for spiritual […]
Five Things I Learned in 2020, Part 3: BLACK MUSIC MATTERS
The most surprising thing I learned in 2020 — by far — has to do with art, and music in particular. Growing up I was mostly surrounded by white people, and I mostly listened to white music (U2, The Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen, Psychedelic Furs, etc. Basically anything that shows up on Sirius XM’s […]
VATICAN’T (Catholicism Without All the Uplifting Parts): Week 7 — The Absurdity of the Cross
Here’s what we have seen thus far in our Vatican’t series: All humans feel an innate lack or void within ourselves. The serpent suggested to Eve in the Garden — and evangelicalism echoes this sentiment — that this sense of emptiness and incompleteness is not natural but foreign, and must be overcome by jumping through […]
VATICAN’T (Catholicism Without All the Uplifting Parts): Week 3 — Quantum? I Barely Knew Him!
As I have stated, the purpose of this series is to integrate some of the spiritual and theological ideas I have been engaging with over the past several years with my own Cathol(ish)ism. In addition to things like religionless Christianity and radical theology I am also drawing from a rather unlikely source of inspiration: quantum […]
Anthony Bourdain and the Christian Response to Tragedy
Like most of us, I awoke this morning to the news that Anthony Bourdain had committed suicide. As I went on social media I began to see countless reactions to this tragedy from friends and acquaintances expressing shock, heartbreak, and condolences to the loved ones he left behind. But then I came across a Facebook […]