I keep getting requests for a sort of "early morning Bible study" -- giving the 'treatment', you might say, to a New Testament text that stings, and also helps. So that's what I'll do for a few episodes, beginning with this one. Christ's Parable of the

It's not an abstraction! It's more than something just to talk about or consider. It could happen to you. In fact, it probably will. I'm talking about unforeseen death. Some people hold on for a long time, even when they don't really want to. Other pe

Pop songs about love are like a corkscrew for understanding the Bible. Songs like "Hooked on a Feeling" and "Don't Pull Your Love Out on Me, Baby", together with a zillion co-belligerants that are written and performed "In the Name of Love" (Thompson Twin

The music is "Good Vibrations" at the start, by The Beach Boys; and "I Knew Jesus (Before He Was a Super Star)", at the end, by Glen Campbell. Here is the description for iTunes and also the blurb for Mockingbird: So much has been written -- I mean, SO

Did you cry at any point as you watched Pope Francis in action during his visit? If you did, when was it? What made you cry? "Now it wasn't just John Boehner! I noticed as I watched the Pope inter-acting with individuals, and especially with individua

Is there anything to it? Is vertical religion -- not just calls to social justice, not just implied belief (system) -- but actual vertical religion rooted in anything resembling fact? I'm utterly bummed these days by mainstream Christianity that just lea

Is there anything to it? Is vertical religion -- not just calls to social justice, not just implied belief (system) -- but actual vertical religion rooted in anything resembling fact? I'm utterly bummed these days by mainstream Christianity that just lea

IThis is not the Who's Final Tour. (They always come back.) So maybe it is the Who's Final Tour. Whatever it is, it's Podcast 200, and that's a benchmark. Somehow. So I decided to sum up the two core themes of the last... 100 or so casts, and also tell

If you don't factor in the element of romantic love -- or at least its possibility -- you'll surprise yourself when you start making decisions in life. Sometimes I wish I could give a college commencement address. (No one is ever going to ask.) But I s

Talk about being misunderstood!: Artur London was one of the 11 most misunderstood men in the world, at least at the end of 1951. London was a defendant in the Slansky Trial, a "show trial" under Joseph Stalin. After suffering the most inhuman torture a