Sheep & Goats returns from an unexpected paternity leave! (The paternity was expected, but the need for leave was not.) If anyone has any wise words about why I should like the new Craig Finn album, or anything else, have at it in the comments! A brief reminder of the grading scale: A “Sheep”...

We’ve been chanting for eight years. Standing shoulder to shoulder as our hair disappeared and our children were born, with sweat dried on our foreheads as we yearned for more of what only you gave us. Of course we knew you would never come. You don’t do encores and we admired you for it. We came...

Eight years ago tonight it was snowing in Denver, CO. I know because I was there, along with thousands of Five Iron Frenzy fans, some who had traveled from around the world. We were there to see the end of something we had loved; to experience it one final time; to put it to rest. In November, Five Iron...

                    We’re sixteen Republican debates into the election season. By November, we’ll have all whipped ourselves into a vitriolic froth and will have convinced ourselves that the very survival of the planet hinged on the result of the...

“Well, I gotta be moving on. I’m needed up in Chesterton. A couple of girls up there think they’re vampires. This Twilight thing has gotten out of hand…” I laughed before Rev. Tim Tom finished telling Sue why he had to run off . I had just started watching The Middle this season, and...

Nothing gets me believing there’s a hell more than when Christians talk about sex. Anyone who received the Talk from sweaty-palmed religious folk know that there is no tribulation more painful, unsettling, not to mention godless. If your conversation went beyond “Don’t do it,” it likely elevated...

Musician Chris Beland of Bend, Oregon learns that he shares more with his Facebook friend and the front man from the Flying Burrito Brothers than just a love of music… In a hallway outside an auditorium that serves as home to Antioch Church in Bend, Oregon, Chris Beland Chabot presses his spine...

Much of the buzz following the 2011 Golden Globes centered around host Ricky Gervais’ delicious skewering of faux celebrity culture. But I’d like to thank Gervais for standing up and proclaiming, “Thank You to God for Making Me an Atheist.” Someone needed to skewer those “Christians” who...

If you’re not familiar with the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, beware: what follows contains heresy and spoilers, and I’m not sure which is worse. As a straight white 30-something Christian, I’m required by law to be a U2 fan. Over the summer my wife and I cheerfully paid a large sum of money...

I love great fantasy/adventure tales, especially ones in which ordinary people in ordinary places find an escape, or rather a hidden entrance, into another world where anything is possible. In the Harry Potter stories – my personal favorite – children run through a brick wall in London’s...