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Blog Posts

The Rise and Fall and Rise of Jimmy Carter

Generations who read about Carter only in history books may miss the drama of his meteoric rise to the presidency. He grew up in rural Georgia, in a home without indoor plumbing or electricity, and walked three miles to school and back. His family could have been scripted by Hollywood: his mother did a stint with the Peace Corps in India and his sister Ruth had some renown as a faith healer. And then there was Billy, who hung out ...

Dislabeled

My memoir, Where the Light Fell, tells the saga of my older brother, in whose shadow I grew up. Marshall was blessed with an off-the-charts IQ and preternatural musical gifts, including absolute pitch and an auditory memory that enabled him to play any music he’d ever heard. Everything changed in 2009 when a stroke cut off blood flow to his brain. One day he was playing golf; two days later he lay in an ICU ward, comatose. Only a rare ...

Faith, Deconstructed or Reconstructed

This blog is different from any of my others. It reproduces an exchange of emails I had with Bart Campolo about my memoir, Where the Light Fell.  Bart, son of the Baptist speaker and writer Tony Campolo, grew up in the heart of the evangelical subculture. He worked as an urban missionary and co-founded Mission Year, a year-long program in which Christian young people live in urban neighborhoods and find practical ways to love their neighbors. Ultimately, however, Bart declared ...

The Sword of Christmas

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword,” Jesus told his disciples, twelve fresh recruits who on hearing that must have wondered what they were getting into. Jesus would later rebuke Peter for wielding a literal sword, and by that time the twelve must have had at least a hint of the deeper meaning behind Jesus’ words. As I reviewed Luke’s familiar account this Christmas ...

Getting Along

Grace gets put to the test when we find ourselves confronted with people who are different from us. Do we welcome them and treat them with respect? I think of the people attracted to Jesus: “heretics” (Samaritans), foreigners (a Roman officer), outcasts (prostitutes, tax collectors, the ritually unclean, those with leprosy). Remarkably, Jesus found a way to treat them with dignity and respect without compromising his beliefs or his character. Contrast Jesus’ spirit with what we see in modern politics. ...