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
- 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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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
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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
