Boobs and breastfeeding have been a “protuberant” topic these days. First there was the recent TIME magazine cover story that sent ripples through the blogging community. “Are You Mom Enough?” went the headline.  By first impressions, the picture shows a Photoshopped model (young, white and upper-class looking, I might add) casting a blank, vaguely defiant, slightly seductive stare…

“I’ve got nothing against God, it’s His fan club I can’t stand!,” goes one bumper sticker.  Endless scandals, bickering, and declining membership and budgets in many denominations all point to a long, historical track record of failures to be the “enchanted community” (to borrow fellow saint and sinner Bob Henderson’s expression) the church claims to…

He showed up at our door yesterday afternoon to fix the refrigerator. (What do you get when a professor and a minister have a broken refrigerator? Answer: An appliance repairman.) The first words out of his mouth signaled he was Russian. Maybe I should have guessed what was coming when I asked in my now…

Today marks the second day of the 2012 World Prayer Assembly in Jakarta, Indonesia, which as part of an ongoing global prayer movement is bringing together some 20,000 children and 5,000 ministry and marketplace leaders from more than 200 nations and across denominations to pray for Indonesia and the world.  The event, co-hosted by Korean…

Those of you watching with bated breath the conversation that began last week- about bad atonement theories- will be vaguely interested in knowing the latest: I have given some thought to fellow saint and sinner Paul’s claim that an orthodox Trinitarian understanding rules out divine child abuse readings of the atonement…And (do I hear a…

You may have heard me tell this story once before here, in the context of “Body Dysmorphic Disorder” (http://blog.beliefnet.com/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners/2011/11/body-dysmorphic-disorder.html), but with Mother’s Day tomorrow, it’s worth a retell as a tribute to my mother and the many of you engaging in some of God’s best work. When I was a kid it was an inevitability that…

This afternoon we visited “Seaside,” a rather surreally concocted residential community that sits perched on scenic highway A30 along Florida’s Gulf coast.  The square plots with their perfectly manicured lawns backing up to cookie cutter houses and a speed limit of 17 mph make the place a strange little world of its own.  Its claim…

I’ll be trading in the pasty-white hues of winter for a tan over the next five days while generating more thoughts at the intersection between life and God and contemplating your helpful deposits of reader wisdom.  Here are a few from the past few days for the benefit of the Fellowship: Apparently “The Beloved Oppressor…

In advance of the upcoming Homiletics Festival (May 14-18) here in Atlanta, I thought I would collect our top ten pet peeves from preachers and the sermons they preach.  (The thought is that if we can get all of our gripes out at once, maybe it will be a) therapeutic and b) actually drum some…

Some of you know that one of my favorite thinkers is Simone Weil.  Last night I read a short chapter on this twentieth century French philosopher and social activist by another of her admirers, the historian John Lukacs, in Remembering Past.  Lukacs notes that what makes Weil’s thought so compelling is her reactionary resistance to…

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