Grace and the Illusion of Control
By Ryan Couch
06/22/26
17mins

Grace and the Illusion of Control

The life we are trying to manage, improve, and secure is not something to be mastered. It is something to be surrendered. And this is where everything changes. Because in Christ, the approval we are seeking has already been spoken.
The Turk at the Door: Luther, Islam, and the Fate of Christendom in the 16th Century
Adam Francisco
Adam Francisco
06/19/26

The Turk at the Door: Luther, Islam, and the Fate of Christendom in the 16th Century

It is within this charged atmosphere that Luther’s writings take on their full significance. His responses to the Turkish threat were not merely reactions to military events; they were rooted in a deep theological reflection on the nature of God’s rule over the world, the responsibilities of Christian rulers, and the role of the Church in times of crisis.
AI Can't Save You
Erick Sorensen
Erick Sorensen
06/17/26

AI Can't Save You

Your God is not artificially intelligent, but the source of all intelligence (including yours).

All Articles

Chad Bird
Chad Bird
02/24/14

Smut and Smug: Secret Religious Delight in Society’s Moral Degradation

I think the chief reason that a faction within me welcomes the disintegration of the American ethos is this: it makes me feel so much better about myself. The smut makes me quite smug.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
02/21/14

Look Who I Found in the Grave

God must kill me. He’s got to slay me, put me six feet under, and shovel dirt atop my corpse. Then, it’s like, “Hey, I finally understand! You’re God and I’m not.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
02/19/14

Tripping Helen Keller

Why, given all the things we wish God had told us, but didn’t, does he “waste our time” by stating the patently obvious? Was there, in Moses’ day, an outbreak of violence against the disabled?
Jeff Mallinson
Jeff Mallinson
02/19/14

Ethos Matters

Ever experience a congregation with the word "Grace" in its name that was nonetheless ironically ungracious and legalistic? I have.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
02/04/14

“There Goes My Life”: A Father's Day Reflection

One day I walked about that place I had tried to make home. I realized it was a prison cell of my own devising.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
01/21/14

Clothing for the Naked Eye: Seeing Things as They Really Are

A cemetery is a hard place to confess because the cemetery itself seems to confess, “You, O mortal, have lost.”
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
01/03/14

Your Own Personal Jesus

Hell is just as happy with those who believe in a fake Jesus, as with those who believe in no Jesus at all. For there is no difference.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
01/02/14

I've Spent the Better Part of My Life Trying to Kill a Man

If I had hated him even while a child, in his late teens I grew to loathe him as the very antithesis of the man I wanted to be.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
12/31/13

Unlearning Evil: Why I Don’t Make New Year’s Resolutions

“Let’s face it,” my mom once told me, while delivering a lecture on making the right moral decisions in high school, “sinning is fun.”
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
12/19/13

"I Would Have Surrendered My Bethlehem Hotel Room to Mary and Joseph" and Other Self-Serving Fantasies

But when I let my mind go there, in truth all I’m doing is this: bellying up to the bar of sentimentality to drink my fill of falsehoods that leave me intoxicated with feelings of saintly superiority.
Chad Bird
Chad Bird
12/10/13

Drinking with the Dead: Country Music and the Communion of Saints

The details vary, of course, but we too struggle to repair the heart broken by the tragic death of someone we love. We're dazed, angry, speechless.
Jessica Thompson
Jessica Thompson
11/20/13

Friends

Have you ever experienced the awkwardness of meeting someone you really enjoy and thinking that it was the start of beautiful friendship, only to find out that they didn’t feel the same way?
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