Christian Piatt's Blog, page 51

God is a Sock (Heretic’s Guide Sampler for Sun, June 9th 2013)

Bible Cliff’s Notes (My dog ate my Bible!) First Reading 1 Kings 17:8-16, (17-24) A widow and her son living in Sidon are starving to death as the result of the famine. Elijah assures her that her food source will not run out. He also resurrects her son after he gets sick and dies. Because [...]

Church Sign Epic Fails, “Drop It Like It’s Hot” Edition

I once prayed for tickets to the Radiohead concert, and instead I got two tickets for Carly Rae Jepsen. I must have prayed in the wrong direction…

Why I Am Actively Supporting the Boy Scouts

A kid no more than thirteen or so came to our door yesterday. We stood tall and was freshly pressed in his scout uniform, his black canvas Chuck Taylors the only betrayal of his otherwise high-and-tight appearance. “Hello sir,” he said. I tried to mask the cringe I always feel coming on when someone calls [...]

Animate.Faith: A Review

(Following is a guest post by Andy Campbell, blogger at The Crooked Mouth and professor at George Fox Evangelical Seminary.) When I worked as a college minister, and later a pastor for small groups at a large suburban church, I slogged through my fair share of DVD-based group curricula. Some were good, most were not. They [...]

Bananas: The Atheist’s Nightmare

Thanks to Jess, a young woman in my Banned Questions Sunday school class, for passing this fairly priceless video along to me. We were having a conversation about the potential complementary nature of Biblical creation stories and a theory of evolution, given the proper contextual appreciation for Biblical narrative, and she offered this gem, once [...]

The Dangers of Christian “Marriage Worship”

I’ve written before about the seemingly contrasting messages we offer to young people in church about sex and sexuality: Sex is dirty; save it for someone you marry someday. Umm, what? Granted, we walk a narrow rhetorical tightrope when discussing sex with our kids. If we tell them it’s actually pretty awesome, and then tell [...]

Christian Culture, Chuck Norris, Uppity Bakers & Evil Portland (HBCultureCast)

After a two-week recording hiatus, the gang is back together, and Amy starts everything off with a harrowing story of survival and triumph of the human spirit at a female pastor’s retreat. Our guest this week is the very funny Stephanie Drury who blogs at Stuff Christian Culture Likes and also runs@FakeDriscoll on Twitter. We had a number of things [...]

Elijah to the Baalites: “Your God Sucks!” (Heretic’s Guide Sampler)

Bible Cliff’s Notes (My dog ate my Bible!) First Reading 1 Kings 18:20-21, (22-29), 30-39 Elijah challenges the prophets of the god Baal to a standoff. Both will prepare offerings to their gods, and will call on them to consume the offerings with fire. Baal does nothing, much to the chagrin of his prophets, but [...]

Church Sign Epic Fails, “Fill Your Cracks” Edition

Pentecost is my favorite religious holiday, because all the good boys and girls get a visit from the Great Pentecost Lizard, who leaves magic droppings under their pillow. Ahh, memories…

Five Questions with Sarah Thebarge, Author of “The Invisible Girls”

Sarah Thebarge is the author of The Invisible Girls, a new memoir from Jericho Books. I was fortunate to get a few minutes to ask her a few questions about her touching, funny, compelling new piece of work. Q:  Your book is about Somali Refugees and also about your survival of breast cancer.  How do you write [...]