Christian Piatt's Blog, page 43

Rich People Suck (Heretic’s Guide Reflection for 9/29/13)

This is part of the weekly Heretic’s Guide to the Bible study series. To read more, or to take part in the study, CLICK HERE, or click on the Heretic’s Guide banners above or below.  Rich people are jerks. They’re greedy, selfish, and don’t care about anyone else. That computer software guy may be the [Read More...]

Church Sign Epic Fails, “When Satan Attacks” Edition

I was minding my own business, playing some Madden 2013, when Satan was all, like, “Dude gimme your tots.” and I was like, “Who are you, Napoleon Dynamite?” and he was all, “No, bro, I’m Satan.” and I was like, “Then gimme your tots, punk!” True story.

Snake Handlers, NPR Geek-Outs and White Power

We’re honored and more than a little geeked out of our skin this week on the Homebrewed Christianity CultureCast to have John Burnett, Religion Correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR in the biz, yo) as our guest. John was in Portland doing a story on our Beer and Hymns and about singer/songwriter Josh Garrels, so [Read More...]

Five Things that are Holding Christianity Back

I’m often asked about what trends I see within Christianity, both good and bad. So in my ongoing effort to help name trends and offer an alternative way of thinking about our faith, here are the five biggest things I’ve seen that tend to keep us from doing our best work as the living, breathing [Read More...]

postChristian: What’s Left? Can We Fix It? Do We Care?

Excited to share the cover of my upcoming book with Jericho Books, called postChristian: What’s Left? Can We Fix It? Do We Care?. The book comes out in hardback August 2014, and following is the working blurb from the Jericho site: Christian Piatt had a Bible (literally) thrown at him when he was kicked out [Read More...]

Talking Sex with a Married Catholic Priest

It’s not every day you meet a practicing priest in the Catholic Church who is married, so when I got in touch with Fr. Dwight Longenecker (a man who meets the above criteria), I took the opportunity to get his take on sex, marriage, celibacy, and how the Church can, should, and already is dealing [Read More...]

Mutual Interest is Self-Interest (Reflection on the Parable of the Money Manager – Luke 14)

Following is a reflection that is part of my larger weekly Heretic’s Guide to the Bible study. This week’s Gospel text is from Luke 14, in which Jesus tells a perplexing story about what seems to be a self-serving money manager who is getting fired by his master. To read more, or to take part [Read More...]

10 Myths About the Food Stamp Program (Which Congress is Trying to Gut)

About a year ago, I wrote about my family participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Challenge, which encourages families to try to live on the equivalent of SNAP assistance (food stamps) for one week. It was a growing experience for all of us, and we actually fell short of our intended goal. It turns out that [Read More...]

Church Sign Epic Fails, “God Hates the Jets” Edition

One time, I let God partner with me on my fantasy team, but he went and drafted, like, six kickers. Major fantasy fail, God.

A Secularist’s Affirming Take on Evangelicals

Tom Krattenmaker has lived on the margins of religious culture much of his life, and now he finds himself in the center of the evangelical Christian conversation. Tom is taking part in our Author Meet & Greet series at First Christian Church, Portland on September 25th at 6PM (a free event), so I put a [Read More...]