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Back in the day, many of you counted on me to write about my personal journey. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, almost all of that kind of material has gone into storage or been deleted. Hopefully, this piece will recalibrate us all on the journey, but not cause quite the chaos in my environment as […]

Here’s a useful question for me right now. (Maybe it will be useful to you, or maybe not.)
Can you find places in scripture where someone had to drastically revise their idea of God in order to know and follow the true God? If so, why and how?
I’m not asking for places where people just […]

In the book Rising from the Ashes, Becky Garrison interviews emerging church leader Peter Rollins, author of How (Not) to Speak of God and the soon to be released The Fidelity of Betrayal: The Ir/Religious Heart of Christianity.
Rollins has always intrigued me. Some of his ideas are difficult to grasp, but in this interview he […]

At the ministry where I work, we have a little guy I’ll call “Charles.” A middle-schooler growing into a young man.
Charles is a church kid, and he’s a Christian. He’s also very, very serious about impressing the adult Christians around him.
He wears a tie every day. Almost no one on our staff does that, and […]

It is the tradition of this web site to hear my confessions, my struggles and my emotions. “Confessional” blogging on my part has touched hundreds of readers and convinced one or two that I am unfit to be in the ministry or even a professing Christian. So be it. This is what’s set on my […]

Early on in my blogging career, I encountered some of the ideas of N.T. Wright and a strong dose of the theology of Robert Capon. It’s safe to say that both “saved me” in a way that I need to revisit frequently. Here’s an early essay where I was just getting a feel for what […]

Here’s the answer to the trivia question “What is the closest the iMonk came to becoming a Muslim?”
In October of 1995, Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan sponsored what was called the “Million Man March” on the mall in Washington, D.C. While probably less than half a million men attended, the march was a […]

Every time I feel like I have lost my way in the Christian life, I find myself back looking at monasticism, and the lessons I learned in two decades of reading Thomas Merton.
I’m not attracted to Catholicism, but I am very much attracted to the tradition of self-conscious, disciplined spiritual formation into a disciple of […]

Every so often the internet will provide you with something that you will never hear anywhere else. I’ve found it this morning, and I hope you will read and share it. It’s entitled “Jesus Talks To A Gay Man,” and it is from a remarkable post by Steve at Ragamuffin Ramblings.
It is a retelling […]

I am always aware that those who read the Internet Monk may not realize that when you hear my voice, you are really hearing the voice of those who have influenced me. There is no one who has influenced me more than Eugene Peterson.
There is a lot I could say about all of Peterson’s twenty-plus […]

[I would encourage everyone reading this post to stop right here, go to Samaritan’s Purse or the charity of your choice, and give to relieve and rebuilt the affected nations. Then we can do a bit of thinking.]
UPDATE: Here’s how I fit all of this into an actual sermon at my church.
I have some thoughts. […]

I can still hear Miss Morris, my senior English teacher, saying it: “Too many “I’s. Too many “me’s.” We were writing essays, and she was simply correcting us with one of the cardinal rules of good essay writing: the essay was about the thesis statement, not about “I,” “me,” or “my.” The reader didn’t need […]

Imagine Jesus lived in a republic, and could vote.
There are several candidates running for Governor of Galilee. The two candidates with the most support are Publius, who wants slavery to continue and expand, and Adrian, who wants many forms of slavery to be done away with, though not all. There are other candidates, like Phillip, […]

This Real Live Preacher piece on the Bible is really wonderful, and I don’t have to agree with every word to say that. I’m sure there are recovering fundamentalists all over the place who could benefit from those thoughts. I can imagine the incident that must have prompted this sad and gentle rant, and the […]

Yes, I’m reading Bill Clinton’s “My Life.” I’m 300 pages into the ex-President’s magnum opus autobiography, and he just got booted out of the governor’s mansion by the voters of Arkansas. He learned a thing or two about how rural folks feel when they discover- at the end of a long line- that their auto […]