Year: 2014

Disquiet Time

I came of age in my Christian faith during the 1980s. I grew up with faith, but in college and beyond I made it personal and active. And formulaic. Like the way everyone wore “Miami Vice” colors in the 1980s, every Christian college-age kid was encouraged to join a bible study, a church, learn how to do “friendship evangelism” and — this is the big one — have a “quiet time.” “Quiet time” sounds kinda…

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A Snigger and a Sword

I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of satirizing my experiences in various church denominations. I chronicled them in a memoir. Many people contacted me who had experienced the same frustration or trauma. There was a kind of camaraderie: comparing our wounds, knowing we are not alone, hoping that there was (and there is, by the way) a way out and forward into a real experience of God, your warts and all. But occasionally I…

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