We are visiting congregationalism this week (by way of the United Church of Christ)! This post has been a tough one to finish. I began it the day after my latest ecumenical visit, several weeks ago, but I was unable to get it done because I was trying not to write something overly negative that sounded essentially like a bad Yelp review. Since, I never could produce a summary that I was happy with, here’s the one I have since... Read more

Perhaps one of the most significant single quotations of the 19th century was by the prodigious and often misconstrued German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who said – among other things – “God is dead.” That little sentence has caused immeasurable trouble ever since it was published in 1882 in Nietzsche’s The Gay Philosophy and was reiterated in the seminal Thus Spake Tharathustra. The poor little sentence has been reduced time and time again to a mere statement if atheism. That reading... Read more

Our next ecumenical visit is one which I debated writing about for a couple of reasons. First of all, my main goal in undertaking this project was to step into new or less familiar spaces and traditions. Second, I wanted to do this with as little bias as possible. The church I visited this past Wednesday evening, however, was a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, just like the church I was baptized in and attended from childhood until college.... Read more

“The church,” one old saying alleges, “thinks in centuries.” This is the mantra that attempts to explain the rate of change within Catholicism. To many modern people, it seems the only centuries the Roman Catholic Church is capable of thinking in are previous ones. To students of the reformation, the church is as “medieval” as the day Luther posted his 95 theses on the door in Wittenberg. To progressive Catholics, the church is chasing the grandeur of the Renaissance and... Read more