Category: Blog
-
Homebrewed Christianity: Me and Tripp Fuller
A few months ago I got a call from my old friend, Tripp Fuller, inviting me to be a guest on his curiously popular theology podcast, Homebrewed Christianity. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance, mainly because I knew that Tripp and his crowd are confident enough in their various versions of faith that…
-
No one gets over anything
I’ve gotten some wonderful emails lately, but I’m sharing this one because the poem at the end of it really does capture the essence of Humanize Me 106. Thanks for paying attention, Polly, and for sending me such a gem. Hey Bart Just listened to your episode ‘Sitting in a Car Contemplating Finitude’. I mean……
-
Wanna change some hearts and minds for the better?
On my bike ride to USC, I often use one ear to listen to podcasts while minding traffic with the other. I love plenty of episodes of WTF with Marc Maron, Science Friday, Freakanomics Radio, On Being with Krista Tippett, Beautiful Anonymous with Christ Gerhard, and Tangentially Speaking with Christopher Ryan, but all of them…
-
How this ‘humanism’ thing works in practice
Rural Haiti isn’t the usual landing pad for recent USC graduates. But then again, Adrian Saiz isn’t your usual USC graduate. He started out like so many others here, joining a fraternity, majoring in accounting, and quickly learning to balance hard partying and academic achievement while diligently networking valuable contacts, acing his internships and plotting…
-
We keep ourselves from broken places
Last Sunday morning Marty and I drove over to Pasadena to hear Bryan Stevenson speak at All Saints Church. I’ve known Bryan since I was a little boy growing up on the campus of Eastern Baptist College and he was one of my father’s all-time favorite sociology students. Bryan went on to Harvard Law School…
-
A poem that reminds me…
As a young man, I ran a ministry called Kingdomworks, which recruited Christian college students to spend their summers in inner-city churches, organizing day-camps for children. Since becoming a humanist, I’ve heard from many of my former volunteers. Some are confused or disappointed by my transition, but others are thrilled that I’ve not only joined…
-
A conversation with a student called Ray
A few days ago I met one of my favorite USC seniors for breakfast. Ray is not usually awake before 10 am, so I considered it a compliment that he rolled out of bed for me. I’d have been more flattered if he’d combed his hair as well, but that’s really just bald man jealousy…
-
On being ‘ministers’
Ever since I became a humanist, I’ve been trying to work the word ‘ministry’ into the secular lexicon. After all, almost every government but ours calls its various departments ‘ministries’ (and their heads ‘ministers’) because they tend to the various needs of its citizens. Plain and simple, ministry is a great descriptor of effective, intentional…
-
On hosting the Sunday Assembly Los Angeles
Dear friends, In 1893, the centerpiece of Chicago’s World Fair was the White City, fourteen neoclassical masterpieces carefully arranged around a large reflecting pool by architect Daniel Burnham, who knew from the start that the whole thing would be torn down as soon as the fair was over. Certainly Burnham must have been grateful for…
-
On my first year at USC
Dear Friends, I’ve been the Humanist Chaplain at USC for nearly a year now, and in a few months I’ll be the Humanist Chaplain at UCLA as well. I need to raise money for both those projects, but I’m new to Los Angeles and hardly anyone really gets my idea of building a relational campus…