Jason Byassee

John Wesley was not the greatest preacher of his day. His occasional friend and sometime nemesis George Whitefield was that. “My brother Wesley acted wisely,” Whitefield said. “The souls that were awakened under his ministry he joined in societies, and thus preserved the fruit of his labor. . . . . Continue Reading »

It has become fashionable in some theological and political quarters to eschew the term libera l in favor of progressive . The linguistic victory for conservatives by which the former term is now radioactive leaves Jim Wallis’s Sojourners and my own employer, Christian Century , fishing for new . . . . Continue Reading »

Back in college, before he was a successful lawyer and practicing Catholic, a friend of mine was at his fraternity house one night, partying with his friends while they waited for a stripper to arrive. And arrive she did, beginning her performance only to catch my friend’s eye. She froze. So did . . . . Continue Reading »

Whatever one thinks about whether it is possible for Christian theology to be systematic—and there are good reasons to think not—we can at least say it is good manners to attempt to lay out everything one thinks in an orderly fashion.The brief dogmatics seems to have made a return to . . . . Continue Reading »

Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor. HarperSanFrancisco. 224 pp. $23.95. There are really two books here. One is a pastoral memoir about Taylor’s falling out with her parish and the resulting shift in her vocation. The other is a critical reassessment of Christianity as such. The first . . . . Continue Reading »