A Semi-complete listing of older IM essays can be found here. Be sure and check these archives for essays from the first 3 years of IM.

• The Religious Fanaticism Series
  • Signs I’m Weary of Weird Christians
  • No Voices In My Head by Bill MacKinnon
  • An Appetite for Fanaticism Can we ever say “You’ve gone too far.”?
  • A Slow Drive Over the Edge An analysis of religious fanaticism among evangelicals.
  • A Growing and Awkward Silence I miss talking to my Pentecostal-Charismatic friends.
• The Worship Series (CCM and The Worship Music Revolution)
  • What I Saw at the Revolution The souring of my relationship with CCM. (Part 1)
  • The Lord Is My Song Toward a workable regulative principle. (Part 2)
  • Lessons From the Psalms God has plenty to say about worship music. (Part 3)
  • Looney Tunes The goofy theology of some worship leaders almost makes me laugh…..almost.
  • So Long Ago, When CCM Wasn’t Awful What was Larry Norman doing making such great music?
  • Dr. StrangeLiturgy How I wound up a liturgical transvestite
• The Public Invitation Series: My Critique of Invitationalism
  • “Leave Your Seat. Leave Your Sin.” Part 1 (My Journey)
  • “Leave Your Seat. Leave Your Sin.” Part 2 (Scripture and Pragmatism)
  • “Leave Your Seat. Leave Your Sin.” Part 3 (How Evangelicalism was Corrupted)
• Theology, Calvinism and the Reformation
  • The Fight For Sola Fide The tinkerers by damned
  • Why Calvinism is Cool An Infomercial for Calvinism. (P.S. I’m not quite this good a Calvinist any more
  • I Hate Theology Want some books? I’m going out of business
  • Throwing Luther From Train Will we save the Reformation?
  • The Piper Project Calvinism’s Rebel Son gets some good nods.
  • A Path Through Those Thorny TULIPS A proposal for peace between Calvinists and Non-Calvinists in the SBC.
• The Christian Life
  • newWhen I Am Weak Embracing Weakness and refusing to be a good Christian
  • The Boat in the Backyard Growing Up WIth Depression
  • I Have My Doubts The many reasons I don’t believe.
  • I’m Not Spiritual by Bill Mackinnon
  • Wretched Urgency The Grace of God or hamsters on a wheel?
  • On Christless Preaching Sermons without Jesus. Sermons for a Mosque.
  • Death: The Road That Must Be Traveled Accepting that I will die is no easy thing
  • Wretched Urgency II: My Not-So Guilty Pleasures Enjoy your life at your own risk
  • Perseverance: That Most Neglected Doctrine How I learned I might still go to hell.
  • Hannah Had It Wrong- Almost by Denise Day Spencer. Sending a daughter to college
  • The Boy on The Beach And How I Killed Him How being fat and being me became the same thing.
  • Running Wounded A highly personal journey into our marriage, to remind other people there is hope.
• The Passion of the Christ
  • Mel Gibson’s Passion Written almost 2 years ago, when I first heard about the movie.
  • Who Killed Jesus? The question that’s too hot to handle
  • Jesus Fifteen Minutes What happened when Jesus suffered? My reviews of the movie at michaelspencer.us My Cinematic Review My Personal Reaction
• The Internet Monk Interviews
  • John Hendryx
  • Telford Work
• Essays For and About Evangelicals:
  • In Love With Jesus? Come Follow Me and Get all Mushy. Talk Hard The Role of the Critic in Evangelical Christianity
  • Why The Show Must Not Go On Revivalism is not a good thing.
  • Raging Bull, SBC Style The embarrassing apologetics of Jerry Vines.
  • Moses Wannabes Suddenly, evangelicals are fascinated with Moses.
  • A Letter To My Friends About TBN Why we watch. Why we shouldn’t.
  • Bad Medicine Firing missionaries over a bad confession was a big mistake
  • Dancing at the Fundamentalist Ball If you want to blackmail me, it’s all here.
  • To Be Or Not To Be Everyone I know is a young earth creationist. I’m not. Why?
  • Christless PreachingAnyone else miss Jesus?
  • Our Problem with Grace Grace is dangerous stuff. Do evangelicals understand it ?
  • Stalking the DVD Antichrist It’s the end of worship as we know it…and we feel fine.
  • Rick Warren’s Scary Movement: A Rant The Pop, The Fizz and the Purpose Driven Biz
  • We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Definitions Liberals pull something called Christianity out of a hat
  • I Am Not A Conservative Christian Rush and Hannity get hours. Scripture gets minutes. Why?
  • Yo Ho Ho A Papist’s Life for Me? Could Evangelicalism drive me straight into the arms of Rome?
  • I Found Heaven at 96.1 FM I can only imagine what non-Christians think about Mercy Me’s song
  • Why Do They Hate Us? The most provocative and widely read article on Internet Monk. Am I right?
  • The Church of What’s Happenin’ Now American evangelicals need the World Christian movement.
  • Occasional Missionaries, Accidental Tourists The mission trip phenomenon needs a second look.
  • Those Magnificent Young Men In Their Pastoring Machines The contemporary pastor is a disaster.
  • The Pope Needs a Business Meeting Pope Rick needs to experience the joy of a business meeting.
  • Those Know Nothing Evangelicals Why high profile evangelicals want to be invisible about what they believe.
  • Singing Praise Choruses With Barbarians at the Gates More than a year later, I am only slightly less ticked off.
  • The Last Gasps of Literate Christianity Cheerfully following the road to Gnosticism, evangelicals decide they no longer are interested in the Bible.
  • Is School Out for Baptists? Somebody in the SBC has a bad idea about public schools.
  • A Conversation in God’s Kitchen A way to think about the Bible
  • A Young Person’s Guide to the Book of Revelation
  • The Little Brothers of Saint Archie Bunker How to argue theology until no one but the cows come home.
  • Sigmund’s Last Laugh My thoughts on Christianity and Psychology
  • A Career in Foolishness Reflections on Thirty Years of Preaching.
  • Mel Gibson’s Passion What to expect when you make a movie about Jesus. (Written almost 2 years ago!)
  • Whatever Happened to the 9/11 Revival? We’re all so “spiritual” now- right?
  • Universalism: Lynchburg Style A Falwellian Theologians valiant struggle to not fall over the cliff of universalism.
  • Say Anything The Ad man triumphs at the church on the corner.
  • Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil A New Age funeral for a murdered girl points out the need for a “gut” apologetic.
  • The Glory of the Nations How Common Grace Redeems nationalism.
  • A Marriage Made in Hell Christian Pessimism. Radical Islam. Bad mix.
  • Fighting Words What happens when we abandon the vocabulary of faith.
  • How Religious Parents Royally Screw Up Their Children Hey Christian parents: we are not always right. Actually, it gets worse…
  • Why I Am A Christian: A Ten Point Argument I’m as out front about my beliefs as I can be in a short space. Attack, agree or be amused.
  • Dear Rev. Falwell A search for the real sinners that caused this mess is a waste of time.
• Michael Spencer’s Recent Political/Cultural Features
  • Girls Tradin’ Up Femininity goes out the window
  • He Found It Howard Dean’s Religious Phase and the media’s continuing “duh.”
  • A Truth Too Simple We could solve racism…if we wanted to be this simple.
  • In the Gay Old Summertime Gay America is out of the closet and not going back.
  • I Am Not A Conservative Christian Rush gets hours. Scripture gets minutes. What’s up with that?
  • In The Bedroom Michael Jackson and the erosion of the moral soul.
  • If You Can’t Say Something Nice, Talk About Islam Could we try to not sound like muttering idiots?
  • The Strange Christmas of 2002 Despite the best efforts of Scrooges everywhere, the Yuletide persists.
  • A Sex Education Lesson A plea to return to our former ignorance.
  • Does the World Need the Spirit of America? A letter to my daughter.
  • The Insanity Offense Fighting terror without offending terrorists.
  • It Ended In Roswell The X-Files Classy exit.
  • Don’t Know Much About History Postmodernism turns off the history channel.
  • Defeat by Embarrassment Why are conservatives ignoring a slam dunk on immigration reform?
  • The Thing That Wouldn’t Go Away Rosie’s fifteen minutes are long overdue, and her latest performance deserves to bring the curtain down.
  • Dirty Hands and A Pure Heart? GWB’s recent disappointments of conservatives won’t be his last. Get used to it.
  • Defending the Dufus President Remember what it was like when we had a polished, articulate and knowledgeable president? We’ve got it good with GWB.
  • Are We Wrong About Marijuana? A reasonable look at a reasonable question: Have we gone too far in our opposition to our culture’s second favorite recreational drug?
  • I Want To Be A Black Man I know the secrets that no one wants to say out loud.
  • The Freedom to Limit Freedom The real risk of mass destruction puts the principles of liberty and the experience of liberty into a new and different context.
• Steve McFarland’s Dispatches From Our Public Schools
  • The Urban Myth Has Thug Life worn out its welcome?
  • Just Pull Your Pants Up! A writer nears the edge.
  • Jerry the Mouse Speaks Classic animation character tells all!
  • Like Noses, Everybody Has One…or Fifty We’re all turning into the Fox News Channel
  • What We Are Digging For Radical honesty. Needed common sense: All kids don’t need high school.
  • Rules Made To Be Broken Your public school tries the U.N. approach.
  • Lost In Space A generation in need of a great quest- again.
  • The Perfection Syndrome “Failure is not an option”. Gene Kranz, Apollo 13
  • My Wasteland Television Addiction portrayed in all its ugly reality. A sad story that will break your heart.
  • A View From the Bench The quote of the year: “The greatest character builder America has is time on the bench.”
  • Dear Students An eloquent call for a generation to consider the price of freedom.
  • What Our Children Know Anyone who says kids need to know more about drugs must be on some.
• Eric Rigney’s “CultureWatch” Features
  • There Is A Bad Man In The House One non-confrontational Christian’s case for removing Saddam.
  • Midnight Shift at the Radioland Asylum Part 2 The cussin’ Christian has a friend.
  • Midnight Shift at the Radioland Asylum Part 1 Rigney returns with a collection of radio preachers in tow.
  • What I Learned From Harry Truman (The Other One) In an age of phony baloney, this guy was the real deal.
  • A Persistent Irrationality Religious superstition raises its ugly head. Are you afraid of $6.66 in change?
  • Christianity and Patriotism Who dares to say Patriotic Sunday is a heresy? Rigney!!
  • The Good Spell of Harry Potter It’s a cultural mega-phenomenon. Why are so many Christians missing the magic?
• The Boar’s Head Tavern Crew
  • An Invitation to Bold Love by Denise Spencer
  • Stepping Off the Bandwagon by Daniel Whittington
  • Why I’m Not A Preacher by Bill MacKinnon
  • Speaking in Tongues by Bill Mackinnon
  • I’m Not Spiritual by Bill Mackinnon
  • An Honorable Company by Bart Campbell
  • Be Careful Who You Drink With by Jack Heald
  • What Has Vienna to do With Geneva or Wittenberg? by Mike Benoit
  • I Love Theology by Jim Nicholson
• Special Articles
  • My September 11, 2001 Just remembering, so as never to forget.
  • The End of Innocence We have to accept that, if we love freedom, life will never be the same.
  • This is What Happens My initial response to the tragedy.
  • My Final Visit To A Christian Bookstore In the spirit of keeping a good Lent, Michael gives up his primary vice.
  • A Little Rebellion Now and Then Why the Anarchist movement isn’t a rerun of the sixties.
  • The NRO Review of “Left Behind” that seems to annoy some readers Hope it’s still on the web. It could have vanished by now