My article, "How I Became Religiously Multiple," made Christian Century's "Top 25 of 2025"! 😊 See the link for it, and the other top articles, here: www.christiancentury.org/editor-s-pos...

"But the universe would not turn backward. It was a great engine . . . inviting humankind to attempt other forms of order and disorder." —Frank Herbert, Children of Dune (1976)

For this #MLKday, some timely selections from Martin Luther King Jr.'s sermon "A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart": . . .

"What manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government?" —Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah (1969)

"There wasn’t even clear evidence that those drug traffickers were from Venezuela, let alone that they were governed by Maduro in any sense." —Susan Breau, prof. of international law and senior associate research fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

My old college classmate Brett McCracken has frustrated me many times in the past with his Gospel Coalition conservatism, but this review of Wake Up Dead Man seems targeted to upset me. He twice uses the term “true Christianity.” The headline itself is outrageous bothsidesism.

I'm tempted to say that I like Everybody Scream even more than I like Dance Fever. Maybe that's just the charm of the new. But maybe not?

Literal eschatology—the expectation that an outside power will one day swoop in and "set everything right"—is a recipe for tragically unconstructive discontentment. It discourages both working to change present circumstances and looking for happiness in the present.

"Thanks to emptiness, everything is possible; without emptiness, nothing is possible." —Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 24.14

"Many . . . are drawn into thinking that emptiness is the ground of being, the ontological ground of everything. But emptiness, when understood rightly, is the absence of *any* ontological ground. . . . It is not any kind of absolute or ultimate reality." —Thich Nhat Hanh, The Other Shore, chap. 4

"The results show that urgent action is needed to stop forest loss or the world risks losing one of its most important natural carbon buffers. . . ." www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Check out my article from the August 2025 issue of the Christian Century. 😊🙏

"The name (of) 'God' is not the name of an assured presence but of a tremulous coming-to-presence, of a soft voice that disturbs the peace of the present and pries it open to the prospect of what is coming." —John D. Caputo, What to Believe?, 175

"God's existence, like ours, is contingent, fragile, unstable, and uncertain, because it is dependent upon the extent to which *we* manage to make this event [God] come true." —John D. Caputo, What to Believe?, 143

"Revelation [is not] a special delivery from on high that has disclosed information beyond the reach of human wit. Revelation is the self-revelation of the Spirit, & it arises from the bowels of being, revealing the inner essence of the forces with which we resonate." —Caputo, What to Believe?, 70

I'm looking forward to #AARSBL2025 this weekend. I'm especially excited to celebrate with Greg and Edwin their new books, The Essential "City of God" and The Incarnation as God's First Intention, which I had the pleasure of working on with them this past year.

"This is the greatest honor that the soul can pay to God, to leave God to himself and to be free of him." —Meister Eckhart

Apophasis for the masses:

God is neither a man nor upstairs.

"Artworks and religious symbols are not fictions that some primitive intelligence arbitrarily made up. They are reverberations from the ground of being recorded in what we call art and religion." —John D. Caputo, What to Believe?, 69

"The best way to conserve a tradition is not to be a conservative." —John D. Caputo, What to Believe?, 13

"If orthodoxy always wins, the Spirit will expire. It will be impossible to make all things new, to announce good news that actually will be new." —John D. Caputo, What to Believe?, 12

"Radicals are traditionalists, and traditionalists have to be radicals if they want to take the process of transmission seriously, instead of using it as an alibi to cling to the past." —John D. Caputo, What to Believe?, xv

Stephen Miller on Fox threatens to arrest JB Pritzker for "seditious conspiracy" and says, "to all ICE officers: you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop or obstruct you is committing a felony."

One person's feeling of absolute dependence is another's perception of emptiness. And some of us might perceive our emptiness as we feel our absolute dependence and feel our absolute dependence as we perceive our emptiness. #Buddhism #Christianity #Schleiermacher

As Charlie Kirk is hailed by many as a missionary-martyr, @dwcongdon.com helps us see "the history of Christian mission and the sordid legacy of Christian imperialism" with fresh eyes. www.christiancentury.org/features/yes...

"This is a direct assault on independent journalism at the very place where independent scrutiny matters most: the U.S. military," National Press Club President Mike Balsamo said in a statement. www.npr.org/2025/09/20/g...

What if Christians today who insist on a final state up ahead somewhere in which all will be set right forevermore are making the same misstep as those of the first generation of Jesus followers who insisted that Jesus would return imminently to finally set everything right?

He could not be less interested in finding out who killed him or why — and his message to his apparatus is clear that that is not a priority — when the killing creates such an opportune pretext to stoke attacks on whoever he feels like.

"When we say, 'God is love,' is 'love' our best name for God, or is 'God' our best name for love?" —John D. Caputo, What to Believe?, 154

"God does not exist; God insists. . . . God leaves existence up to us." —John D. Caputo, What to Believe?, 150

“Prove me wrong” will never create the America of our hopes and dreams. “I will listen” might.

"God is the name of an event, of a dream for which we are to provide the reality, of a promise on which we are expected to make good." —John D. Caputo, What to Believe?, 141

This is very much extremely the thing. "You stupid SHEEP! There's no invisible MAN on a MOUNTAIN!" "No shit, Sherlock." "And no Magic SkyDaddy is gonna just FIX things if you pray hard enough!!" "That's correct." "And people don't get sick because they were bad!!" "Did... you think they did??"

"Panentheism must nowadays face the verdict of the stars, that the being of God is finite and mortal." —John D. Caputo, What to Believe?, 109

roses are red violets are blue singular they predates singular you

Self-reliance gets into trouble not because of the direction of the reliance but because of the concept of the self.

"Whatever the grandeur of the speaker's utterances, his manner of life carries more weight." —Augustine, Teaching Christianity 4.27.59

What a world we're in. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

In a new video, @alexdemarco.bsky.social tells @jonmathieu.bsky.social why and how he came to practice both Buddhism and Christianity—and describes the value of nonattachment. youtu.be/oxP4E-L8XY0

"It’s a mockery of democracy." Indeed. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

"Relational pluralism . . . opened my eyes to how mainstream Christian theology, even in its inclusive forms, excludes other religious perspectives and paths from the kind of access to saving truth that it claims for itself." #Pluralism #Religion #Theology www.christiancentury.org/features/how...

In Buddhism, we learn interdependence--our lives are bound together, and harm to one is harm to all. For centrists worried about “going too far,” this is the time to step left in solidarity, to build a greater movement that lifts up the poor AND continues to build upon recent rights struggles.

"Traditions that came to be what they are only in relation will only . . . fulfill their promise through relation." —John J. Thatamanil, Circling the Elephant, 71

Moraine Lake is absurdly spectacular. I feel very fortunate that I had the chance to visit. This is one of my favorite shots.

"To me, as a Palestinian, as an oppressed, I always felt my duty to also liberate my oppressor from their hate and from their fear." "It's not about me. . . . The main goal of targeting me is to chill speech in this county." —Mahmoud Khalil open.spotify.com/episode/0Czv...

The view from Bald Hills, overlooking Maligne Lake, in Jasper National Park, Alberta, CA.

"God is rising up in us, with us, for us, as us." —Ilia Delio, The Not-Yet God, chap. 11