This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.

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The kind of peace Jesus points to can't be achieved with words.
Asking whether one's beliefs are the right ones is terrifying.
Instead of answering this question theoretically, perhaps it will be easier to illustrate the problem of understanding God through our human speculation by considering the legend of St. George and the Dragon.
On Sunday mornings, when I confess my sins, I say that “I am heartily sorry for them and sincerely repent of them.” But those adverbs are like two accusing fingers pointed at my less-than-heartily-sorry, less-than-sincerely-repentant heart.
The 21st century is simply not compatible with a reformational mindset. Daniel Dennett argues in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995) that conservative Christians better serve their secular neighbors as specimens in a cultural zoo, relics of a bygone world.
In some ways, though, it seems that scientism may increasingly be the greater of the two dangers in American higher education. Not only has Helen Rittelmeyer, for example, made a case for relativism (at least in the ethical realm) being effectively dead and buried.
One gets science or religion, but not both. Today’s model swings to the other end of the pendulum, flirting with an extreme inclusivity. One gets science and religion, as long as they are properly understood.
Some consider apologetics, with its emphasis on rational arguments and empirical evidence, a distinctly “modern” enterprise. Thus, however legitimate or useful it might once have been, now that we have taken an allegedly “postmodern” turn.
To determine whether the conception of Christianity as philosophy might actually be warranted, attention must be given to the actual natures of philosophy and religion, especially as then understood.
The characterization of Christianity as a philosophy—however counterintuitive—is entirely without warrant. And it is certainly not without precedent.
What does Steve Jobs have to do with Theology? Very little. But that won’t stop me from trying to make a connection.
A couple of weeks ago I ordered pizza for dinner. I didn’t pray, “Lord, give me pizza.” I called the store. The pizza did not drop down from heaven at my doorstep like manna from heaven.