The Wittenberg Door

Pastoring while Living in the Trenches of Prison

Pastoral ministry in prison can change lives, but it doesn’t magically erase the pain of incarceration.

An Ode to the “Rest Is History”

For the task of understanding the past demands honesty, humility, and respect for all aspects of human nature, from the material to the intellectual and volitional and—above all—the spiritual.

Sacramental Ontology in a Christian School

To gaze upon creation through a sacramental lens is to admit that God is God and we are not; it is an antidote to the poison of Genesis 3.

On Beating Dead Horses

But I wonder: as it strains to get over Christ, will the West survive without noticing all the other beaten horses of the world? Or will it one day break its supposed sanity and collapse back into a foregone pity?

Sisyphus, Don’t Go it Alone

A Non-Believer Ponders Life, Death, and Staring into the Abyss

The Census Taker in a Church Pew, part 6

This rural mountain church continues to be good because it continues to do what is necessary.

Don’t Bite the Hand That Taketh Away

God is perverted in our minds from a giver into an imminent enemy. He becomes the all-knowing one who alone reads our hearts’ desires and who alone, in His power, can prevent their satisfaction.

Pentecost and AI: Being Human in a World of Disabling Algorithms

Rather than empowering us to live in humble confidence in relationship with others and our maker, AI offers us a choice similar to that which confronted Esau.

98.6 Percent of Us Sense our Dead

We’re not crazy — and we’re not alone

Stability as Spiritual Formation

“They see us as deeply lonely people,” Barry told Fred, “and one of the reasons we’re lonely is that we’ve cut ourselves off from the nonhuman world and have called this ‘progress.’” Maturity in Christ is not escape but presence.