C.R. Wiley's Blog, page 2

How Big Is Too Big?

In the original Twilight Zone there is an episode entitled, The Last Night of a Jockey, in which the famously short Mickey Rooney has been disqualified from racing horses. His small stature, once an asset, is now a liability. Now he wants to be big. In the course of the show he is shown that […]

Making the Good Life from Home

In my advocacy for recovering the productive household, the first question I’m asked is, “Is it possible?” But there is a second, sometimes hiding in first, other times expressed, and it is this: “Is it desirable?” I think we all live short of the ideals we live for–so failure to fully perfect an ideal doesn’t […]

Watchful Dragons

I think most people assume stories make difficult things easier to understand. That’s why preachers should use them, it is believed. They illustrate. I don’t think that’s quite right, it isn’t the reason Jesus spoke in parables. We have his word on that. 10 Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak […]

Appearing on The Dean Abbott Podcast, Among Other Things

Long-suffering readers, I apologize for the infrequent posts as of late. It has been a busy time. The good news is there are a number of good things to share. I’m on The Dean Abbott podcast. The first is I was interviewed by fellow Patheos blogger, Dean Abbott for his podcast about my book, Man […]

A Young Man Reflects on Gun Violence Walkout Protest

What follows are the reflections of a high school senior on the national gun violence walkout by public school students. I’ve not published his name, although he gave me permission to do so. That was my editorial decision. – A few weeks ago, my school, RHAM High School, participated in the nationwide demonstrations against the […]

On Committing Fiction as a Pastor

What follows are some concluding remarks to a talk I am delivering at Eastern Nazarene College tomorrow (4/5/18). The whole talk will hopefully be published somewhere in the near future. Preachers rarely excel at writing fiction. Not many try, but those who do are often accused of preaching under false pretenses. (For atheists preachers do […]

The Physicality of Authority

“You can’t make me.” I recall the day that this occurred to me. My mother wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do. So I didn’t do it. I think I was about 10 years old. Naturally she had trained me to obey her wishes my entire life. But it didn’t matter. This […]

The Family that Votes Together Stays Together

Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton often says more than she means to say. Such was the case in India the other day. She said something to the effect that women who vote Republican are in the thrall of the men in their lives, implying that her politics, naturally, serves their interests better. If only men would […]

Academics Are Usually Cowards

Academics are usually cowards. There are exceptions. People like Anthony Esolen, formerly of Providence College, or Robert Gagnon, formerly of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. But note the word “formerly”. Those men said and wrote things that got them in trouble with the centers of power in academe. They defended crazy right-wing notions like–some works of art […]

The Dark Satanic Mills of Public Education Have Got to Go

I don’t hate public schools because I am a Christian, I am a Christian, in part, because I have always hated public schools. Before I go any further, I must say I have known many public school teachers and many of them are wonderful people. But almost without exception these teachers have been kept from […]