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Oh Sinners, Let’s Go Down

October 12, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

Did you see this lovely story of a father and daughter who were recently baptized together in a Virginia jail? Remarkable thing. Unbeknownst to each other, both were serving time on drug charges and joined the men’s and women’s Bible studies respectively. Eight women and three men made the choice to be baptized on the same day. That was when someone put the pieces together and realized the father and daughter were, indeed, father and daughter. The girl is pregnant too…. Read more

#MeToo, Borders, and the Tyranny of Empathy

October 8, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

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The Brett Kavanaugh circus is officially over. Our news and social media feeds can now gradually revert back to their usual levels of hysteria and toxicity—still high, but please God, not quite this high, thank you. Yet even while life in 2018 returns to as close to normal as life in 2018 can be, the memory of these last few weeks will fester in the American mind for a long time to come. For ideologues on the left, Kavanaugh’s confirmation… Read more

We Went Through Hell For Kennedy II

October 6, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

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The other day, I was FaceBook PM’ing back and forth with a very good friend of mine about all this. We compared theories and hot takes. We told each other exactly what we thought, the way very good friends do. We didn’t agree or disagree 100%. At the end of the day, I signed off: “I am so ready for this to be over.” She messaged me back: “You and me both.” According to my social media feeds, I should… Read more

Of Pedo Priests and True Religion

September 28, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

35 Comments

Last week, I engaged in a wide-ranging dialogue on Unbelievable? radio about Jordan Peterson, the Intellectual Dark Web, the alt-right, and religion with secular humanist chaplain James Croft. James blogs at Temple of the Future on Patheos Non-Religious, and among many other things we discussed his post “The Atheist Alt-Right Connection,” which was how I was first introduced to his work when Justin Brierley sent it to me. Unbelievable? is the world’s premier Christian radio network and the only Christian… Read more

On Reading Well: A Conversation With Karen Swallow Prior

September 12, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

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If you enjoyed my reflections on “Tenth of December” the other day, thank Dr. Karen Swallow Prior! Currently flying off the shelves, her new book On Reading Well has introduced several new pieces of literature into my life, as well as providing new perspective on some old favorites. Since everyone else is talking about it, it seemed like a good time to seize the day and squeeze in a little interview of my own. Trying to avoid treading where many… Read more

George Saunders Contra Rational Suicide

September 10, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

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I am afraid of dying. Not death. Dying. Death is short, you see. But dying, that might take a while. I’m not the only one. I’m thinking about that a lot on this day, the tenth of September, which has been delegated World Suicide Prevention Day. I’m not typically a “World Something-Something Day” type. For this I make an exception. Partly because this article is on my mind. The topic is “rational suicide”: suicide when you are not clinically depressed,… Read more

Is There an Atheist Alt-Right Connection?

September 8, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

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[Update: In the course of this article, I conjecture that the secular humanist blogger I’m engaging with would consider himself a human exceptionalist. Since then, I have found an article where he emphatically rejects this label. I stand corrected and educated, though with no fewer questions for him.] Recently, I was approached with an invitation to have a dialogue on Justin Brierley’s Unbelievable? radio show with secular humanist James Croft, a Patheos neighbor on the non-religious network. Details are still being worked out,… Read more

Rich Mullins Had Praise & Worship’s Number

September 5, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

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For fans of Rich Mullins, YouTube’s one-stop Mullins shop the Ragamuffin Archive is bringing you Christmas early. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Mullins legacy-preservers Andrew Montonera and Joe Cook, lost footage from an old workshop taped by LeSea broadcasting is being digitized and released to the public. Some of Mullins’s best teaching and live moments were taped at this workshop over the course of a couple days and have been available for years. But what fans didn’t know was… Read more

Millennial Christians Are No Wiser Than Their Parents

September 1, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

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If the older generation of evangelicals could be foolish and naive, the next generation is no wiser, despite the impression The New Yorker would like to give. Read more

Though Rome Falls, the Church Stands

August 28, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

4 Comments

I can picture the scene vividly. The place is the Domus Sanctae Marthae. The time is the morning of June 20, 2013. The Domus is pulsing with activity, voices rising and falling, feet coming and going on the lobby’s marbled floor. Gathered together from the world’s four corners, the Church’s apostolic nuncios have converged on this point in space-time. Tomorrow the pope will address them as one. A man enters the hall. He has flown in from Washington, weary with… Read more