Articles By: Bert Montgomery

Bert Montgomery is an author, a teacher and a minister spreading God's mojo. His second book, Psychic Pancakes & Communion Pizza, will be released in May 2011. Follow Bert on Twitter @BertMontgomery; or visit www.bertmontgomery.com.

Post-Katrina Jungian Jambalaya

At the end of August 2005, I was living in northern Kentucky. At the end of August 2005, I was about twenty years out of high school and about twenty years out of Louisiana. But at the end of August 2005 (and in the months that followed), time and space disappeared into the mystic. By early spring 2006...

March 1st, 2013 | Featured | Read More

When Love Comes to Town (A Christmas Meditation)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . And the Word became flesh and lived among us (John 1:1-2, 14a). Or, as Eugene Peterson puts it, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” (The Message). Eighteen years ago this...

December 25th, 2012 | Featured | Read More

The “Lost” Wittenburg Door Interview with Baptist Legend (or, Heretic) Glenn Hinson

Dr. E. Glenn Hinson: world-renowned church historian, respected and sought-after leader in Christian Spirituality, and everyone’s favorite living Baptist heretic. In late summer/early fall 2007, I interviewed Dr. E. Glenn Hinson for the religious satire magazine The Wittenburg Door. Contract...

September 18th, 2012 | Democracy, Essays | Read More

Of “Lights” and Soul-Liberation (Confessions From a Real-Life Journey Moment)

“Honey, thou dost protest too much, methinks,” says my wife frequently. Oh, she’s not always so Shakespearean about it, but she does say essentially that. Denial is a funny thing. Refusing to accept the truth about your own self often leads to projecting your loathing upon others. Plus, it’s...

September 6th, 2012 | Arts, Essays, Music | Read More

How to Satisfy Jesus (via the Gospel of Elvis)

I wish I had a nickle for every time God spoke to me through Elvis. Like Elvis’ song “A Little Less Conversation”: A little less conversation, a little more action please; All this aggravation ain’t satisfactionin’ me; A little more bite and a little less bark; A little less fight and...

June 13th, 2012 | Culture, Democracy | Read More

O Jesus, Where Art Thou?

Easter Sunday. Had it occurred in Depression-Era Mississippi, rather than 1st Century Roman-occupied Jerusalem (and it very well could have), when the women arrived at the tomb they would have beheld a man dressed in a long, white robe, whittlin’ away on a stick, who very likely would have said...

May 1st, 2012 | Film | Read More

Of Jaws, Fishing for Men, and the Kingdom of Heaven (Or, We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat!)

Quint the fisherman, played to perfection by the scene-stealing Robert Shaw in the 1975 Steven Spielberg masterpiece, Jaws, was a rugged, thick-skinned, and independent man who played by his own rules and offered to hunt, kill, and bring back to shore the shark that was terrorizing a small coastal town...

March 12th, 2012 | Arts, Essays, Featured, Film | Read More

Ode to Dale and Mary

Dale and I became fast friends a few years ago because of our love for the music of that Missouri band of rural hippie farmers known as the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. Their song “Beauty in the River” is one of my favorite all-time hymns (of the “not-actually-a-hymn” variety). there’s a...

February 24th, 2012 | Arts, Music | Read More

Mardi Gras – For Baptists

It’s been almost 26 years since I left Louisiana with my parents, and I still really miss the Mardi Gras season. Mardi Gras is one long, enormous party – in the best, and sometimes the worst, sense of the word. Every single day for a few weeks leading up to Fat Tuesday there is something exciting...

February 22nd, 2012 | Culture, Featured | Read More

O Rebels, Where Art Thou? (An MSU Fan’s Ode to Ole Miss)

Hugh Freeze is the new head football coach at Ole Miss. Before you ask, “Hugh?” (sometimes pronounced “who?”), just think of The Blind Side. The goofy high school coach at Memphis’ Wingate Christian School who answers his cell phone on the sidelines during a game is a fictional representation...

January 9th, 2012 | Sports | Read More