Posts
About once a month, you will find a new post in this section focusing on the intersection between faith and modern life. If you want email notifications about future posts, stories, articles and books, please go to the contact page and sign up.
What to Do about Church?
/in Featured, Uncategorized/by Martin ThielenDoubter’s Parish readers discuss their relationship with institutional religion.
Book Review of Brian McLaren’s “Do I Stay Christian”
/in Featured, Uncategorized/by Martin ThielenIn his provocative new book, Brian McClaren offers ten reasons to abandon Christianity—and ten reasons to stay.
Orthodox No Longer
/in Featured, Uncategorized/by Martin ThielenWhatever you may think about nontraditional believers, their numbers are rapidly growing, their views are taking hold among a large swath of people, and they are not going away.
Vampire Theology
/in Featured, Uncategorized/by Martin ThielenThe characters of Netflix’s “Midnight Mass” miniseries creatively represent at least four different types of religion that can be found in contemporary America.
The Night I Stopped Believing in Substitutionary Blood Atonement
/in Featured, Uncategorized/by Martin ThielenIt’s theologically offensive in the modern era to think God required a bloody sacrifice of his Son in order to forgive humanity.
Where is the Joy?
/in Featured, Uncategorized/by Martin ThielenWe have a huge deficit of joy these days. We need to reclaim it.
Pandemic Pastors
/in Featured, Uncategorized/by Martin ThielenOne pastor told me, “No matter what I do about COVID protocols, I get attacked. I’m exhausted to the bone.”
What Matters More—Belief or Behavior?
/in Featured, Uncategorized/by Martin ThielenIt may startle you, but throughout the Bible, God seems surprisingly disinterested in doctrinal beliefs.
Leaving Church?
/in Featured, Uncategorized/by Martin ThielenLegions of people are disgusted with the sorry state of institutional religion in twenty-first century America—for many good reasons.
Christmas at First Church
/in Featured/by Martin ThielenI’d like to share one of my favorite Christmas stories. It’s about a United Methodist Church in North Carolina who initiated a wintertime homeless ministry.