A Life Etched into the Mountains
“Can you tell me what kind it is?” A rock, thrust in my face by my keen-eyed daughter, looked like the kind of shale we’d been examining for the better part of an hour. The …
Christianity
Art is not Frivolous
This statement was displayed with an art exhibition of mine several years ago. It was a personal statement that the venue asked me to include. It has a central idea that is very important to …
Hospitality and Love: Learning from a Marine and Beth Moore
This week, I ran across two stories that struck me. They could not be more divergent in some ways, but in other ways, they echoed. Both had to do with faith communities, how one directly …
Everything Comes Back to a Garden
With God, it all comes back to a garden. Humanity, the Bible says, got its start in a garden, a place so perfect that everything was good to eat save one fruit. That fruit, however, …
The Person My Mother Thinks I Am
My mother is fond of telling me, “Scot you’re David!” The David she has in mind is the biblical one. And when she conflates me and King David, I’m positive she is thinking of the …
Between Two Worlds
I grew up on a small ranch in Northern California. My mother, who was raised in rural Tennessee and loved the land, managed the ranch and home. My father was an Appellate Court Judge in …
Dual Citizenship: What Does it Mean to be a Christian and a Citizen of the United States?
One of my Facebook friends posted a rather bizarre photo a couple of years ago. He and his sons professed a fervent evangelical Christian faith, as well as a strong dedication to the “Tea Party” …
Caring Without Credit: A Posture of Humility
A few years ago, I attended a birthday celebration for a loved one with family and friends. One of the women at the party was known to have been battling a serious case of breast …
Why Does Jesus Need a PR guy?
I teach a class called Art and Christian Faith. We talk about a lot of issues in that class that live at the intersection of art, the church, and culture more broadly. The class is …
A Call for Christians: Challenge Hell’s Native Tongue by Telling the Truth About American History
In my 7th-grade history class, I was taught that American slaves were treated well by their masters and that most of them preferred life on the plantation to freedom. This obvious lie was among several …