Ex-Patriot

Confronting Christian nationalism (and other bad ideas)

Category: Faith and Life

  • The Two-Tiered System of MAGA Evangelical Morality

    The Two-Tiered System of MAGA Evangelical Morality

    Welcome to the world of MAGA evangelical morality, a kind of moral calculus that would befuddle most people outside the appropriate ideological lines.

  • Inerrancy is the Problem Behind the Problems – Part 4

    Inerrancy is the Problem Behind the Problems – Part 4

    So does the ‘God’ who issues this divine directive to commit genocide look like Jesus? Like Jesus, who preached love for one’s enemies, who refused to strike back against his own enemies, who prayed “Father, forgive them” on behalf of those subjecting him to a torturous death?

  • Inerrancy is the Problem Behind the Problems – Part 2

    Inerrancy is the Problem Behind the Problems – Part 2

    In the minds of so many evangelicals, God may as well have swung a pocket watch in front of the biblical writers, telling them they were feeling “very sleepy”, then dictated word for word the text they were to compose. Or better yet, simply shoved those writers aside, saying He’d “take it from here”, dipped…

  • Inerrancy is the Problem Behind the Problems – Part 1

    Inerrancy is the Problem Behind the Problems – Part 1

    Think about the issues American Christians are angry about. It shouldn’t take long for us to see that this anger has its roots – and its justification – in a ‘straightforward reading’ of an ‘inerrant’ Bible.

  • No, We Don’t Know What’s Going to Happen – and That’s a Gift

    No, We Don’t Know What’s Going to Happen – and That’s a Gift

    Humans can’t predict the future. Rather than fret about what the Trump administration may or may not do, let’s choose how we want to live.

  • Can We Find Christian Hope in a Trump Victory?

    Can We Find Christian Hope in a Trump Victory?

    With each successive layer, Evangelicals might just bury their own system a little deeper. Perhaps another Trump presidency will show that American Evangelicalism is a long-dead corpse, the plug of whose life-support should have been mercifully kicked out of the wall decades ago, a corpse that deserves to be buried. And many more who don’t…

  • A Cost of Living Liturgy

    A Cost of Living Liturgy

    Give us your eyes, that we might see beyond ourselves. Give us your hands, that we might remain generous. Give us your heart, that we might feel others’ needs. Give us your resources to meet the needs we can.

  • Liturgy of Cups and Paths: July 14-20

    Liturgy of Cups and Paths

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    July 14-20

    Some lift the cup in joy, in contentment, or in peace; Others lift it in bitterness, or sorrow, or pain. May each one sense you near, within reach, close as the cup in the hands.

  • Liturgy from Solitude: July 7-13

    Liturgy from Solitude

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    July 7-13

    As you journey through these days, May you be aware of the God who journeys with you, The God who journeys with all, In all times and all seasons.

  • Liturgy of Nearness: June 30-July 6

    Liturgy of Nearness

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    June 30-July 6

    Eternal glory to the Father, the Son and the Spirit of God. So it was at the dawning of the world. So it is in the moments we live. So it will be to the ages of ages. Eternal glory to the Three who are One.