Month: May 2018
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The UMC & The Which Way Tree
Preacher Dob, the Mexican horse thief, and two young teens were at a standstill. They had lost the trail of the panther they were hunting, the one who had killed the girl’s mother and on whom she had sworn vengeance. Zechariah, their panther dog, had gotten the worse of an encounter with a skunk, and…
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Small Towns as Moral Communities: A Review of The Left Behind
Here’s the plot: a ragtag group of survivors suddenly discovers that people who have been a significant part of their lives have moved on leaving them in a desperate moral quandary as they try to piece together what has happened and work for a better future. No, it’s not Tim LeHaye’s rapture series, Left Behind. …
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Living in the Pages of The Sarah Book: A Review
If I didn’t know Scott McClanahan, I’d be worried about him. In fact, I’d go up to him and ask, “What is wrong with you?” That’s a less profane version of the question his wife, Sarah, asks him near the beginning of The Sarah Book when he burns their wedding Bible after getting a series…
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Looking In on Lookout Mountain: A Review of I Want to Show You More
There’s a lot going on up on Lookout Mountain. The battle of Chickamauga is not really over. 89-year-old Eva Bock braves traffic to walk up Lula Lake Road to deliver snail mail to President Bush protesting the war. A mainline church takes Corbett Earnshaw’s abrupt confession of disbelief as a sign and demolishes their building…
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Guest Blogging on Leaving the Herd
Ben Rigbsy, a recent guest blogger on Heartlands, got me thinking about moving and relationships for his site, Leaving the Herd: http://leavingtheherd.com/2018/04/20/7-ways-to-stay-in-love-in-the-midst-of-a-move/
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Rebelling Against King Jesus
Originally posted on think and let think: This week on the Strangely Warmed podcast I speak with Alex Joyner about the readings for the Day of Pentecost – Year B (Acts 2.1-21, Psalm 104.24-35b, Romans 8.22-27, John 15.26-17, 16.4b-15). Alex is the District Superintendent for the Eastern Shore in the Virginia Conference, and he regularly blogs on…
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The Cold Aftermath of A Wrinkle in Time
It’s not solely because of A Wrinkle in Time that I’ve come to this conclusion, but…science fiction leaves me cold. We’re in a mini-boomlet of renewed interest in Madeline L’Engle’s children’s classic thanks to the Ava Duvernay movie and Sarah Arthur’s upcoming biography, A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madleine L’Engle. So,…
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Two Big Reasons for Churches to Talk About Race
These are dangerous days to talk about race. If you try to raise the subject in polite company you’re likely to face some averted glances or rolling eyes. In impolite company, well, who knows? For some, talk of race is a pretext for a political agenda. For others, the failure to talk about race is…
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Your Civil War Is Too Easy: Looking for The Thin Light of Freedom with Ed Ayers
Who starts a story of the Civil War in the middle? By the time Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia marched up the Shenandoah Valley into Pennsylvania in July of 1863, the war had been going for more than two years. The twin Confederate defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg on the 4th of July usually mark…
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