On Monday, bombs went off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, and today we’re tempted to tell stories when we ought to be grieving.

The pundits have already started. (Apparently the first rule of punditry is that it would be irresponsible not to speculate irresponsibly.) Chris Matthews wondered whether far-right, anti-tax groups were behind the attack, and right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham is trying to use the bombings to fuel anti-immigrant sentiment. We can safely assume…

In high school I had a class on Early British Literature. It was a lot like most other high school English classes. We would read, listen to lectures, and have group discussions. Then about halfway through the course a handful of students turned it into a game. They all assigned themselves topics that they were obligated to invoke no matter what was being discussed in class.  One student would say, without fail, “What this really reminds me of is Plato’s allegory of the cave…” and another…

Conservative and liberal Christians disagree about a lot of things, but I think the two camps are basically in agreement when it comes to the morality of social safety net programs like TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) and the SNAP program (more commonly known as "food stamps").

These taxpayer-funded social programs are, depending on which subgroup you ask, either a faithful extension of Jesus’ commandment to care “for the least of these” or a form of legalized theft…

Of all the things to which humans ascribe tremendous social and moral worth, the question of whether or not God exists is, to my way of thinking, one of the silliest. It’s silly because it doesn’t actually carry the meaning or importance that people like to think it carries.  Beyond that, it often functions as a really counterproductive way of framing things. The theism vs. atheism contest most often serves to obscure communication rather than lend clarity. It’s another needless…