quite a few years ago, i attended a seminar led by tony jones in which he discussed the blurred lines between what we label as sacred and secular. at that point in my faith journey, i had a particularly difficult time buying in to his fundamental thesis. my way of thinking about and engaging god was far too dichotomous. either/or was much more appealing than both/and. even more than that, i feared a worldview where decision-making couldn’t necessarily be eased by the label “christian”.

you likely don’t know the name mickey maudlin. i certainly didn’t until recently when he spoke out about the reaction to rob bell’s controversial bestseller love wins. so why is he speaking out? because he’s the executive editor at HarperOne—the publisher of the book—who worked alongside bell throughout the writing process.

last night, i participated (along with a few friends) in what was dubbed a “common prayer party”. in essence, it was a book release party (which corresponded with hundreds across the country) for a new book of common prayer compiled by shane claiborne, jonathan wilson-hartgrove and enuma okoro, called common prayer: a liturgy for ordinary radicals. the night, organized by my friend kim, was a reading of a handful of the prayers as well as an opportunity to participate in prayer stations engaging us in the season of advent.

it was a good opportunity to begin this season with a time of quiet and reflection and communal prayer. throughout the night, we had an opportunity to check out the book. it’s a great collection (that i highly recommend for churches) and one particular prayer caught my attention as i skimmed through it.

the book or the movie? it’s the classic question that supposedly separates the intellectuals from the, well, non-intellectuals. i have absolutely no shame in saying that i’m a “movies” guy. almost aways. of course, i just don’t read any fiction or could-be-a-movie books. most of the reading i do is of the theological variety and there’s not too many movies [...]

i’ve never read an anne rice book. i’ve never seen an anne rice-adapted movie. i’ve never been interested in vampires or books about vampires. despite these things, though, i’ve been a distant and intrigued observer—over the last 10 years—as anne rice has come back to faith. growing up in the catholic church, at the age of 18, she left her [...]

let’s talk menstruation, shall we? ok, so we can talk about more than that, but certainly, it does play a part. we’ll get to that later, though. in the meantime, how about a little biblical interpretation to tide us over? people often view the bible as some kind of transcendent record of endless grandiose, sacred moments. sure enough, the bible [...]

to say that 2009 was a busy year for me would be a incredibly gross understatement. looking back, there are still several big things that i just simply couldn’t find the time to blog about (some are still coming, hopefully). one of those things i found out way back in april, came to fruition in november and yet, i still [...]