williamlobdell.com

Christian bumper stickers — or attempts by states such as South Carolina to issue “I Believe” license plates — are effing ridiculous. Believers should follow the advice of St. Francis of Assisi:
Preach the Gospel always, and when necessary use words.
In other words, it isn’t necessary to market yourself as a Christian — just act like [...]

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About a decade ago, a beloved co-worker of mine was murdered on her way home from a Christmas-time Mass. Her attacker tried to steal her purse. She was feisty and fought back. He slit her throat and left her to die in a pool of blood in her carport.
Donna’s death devastated all of us who [...]

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Last week in Australia, Pope Benedict XVI warned the youth there about materialism.
“In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading — an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair.”
This follows the Pope’s announcement earlier this year that outlined seven social sins [...]

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As a former believer expressing doubts about Christianity, I’m frequently warned: Be careful. What you’re doing will have eternal consequences (translation: I’m headed to hell).
What B.S.
Here’s what I know. I looked, with all my heart, for God. I searched far longer than was logical for my faith to reappear. It didn’t. I didn’t make a [...]

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When I started writing about my spiritual doubts, an in-law of mine left me a scathing message on my voice mail, telling me that the reason why my son Tristan had gotten Type 1 Diabetes is because I had turned away from God and His protection. And, he added, the chronic ear problems of another [...]

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Lately, I’ve become obsessed with Mother Teresa. In one way, at least, we weren’t much different. We both stopped experiencing God in our lives. My spiritual desert started in 2002; hers lasted the last 50 (50!) years of her life.
After four years, I decided the reason I wasn’t feeling God in my life was because [...]

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The Beijing Summer Olympic Games will begin in a couple of weeks, and I’ll be watching the coverage until my eyes bleed. I don’t think there’s any better ever on television that the Olympics.
But in the recent U.S. trials, I saw a horrible trend in full stride. Wining athletes, at the end of their races [...]

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The main criticism I’ve received for writing my upcoming book, “Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America,” is that I’m a modern-day Judas, profiting by bringing down God. I suspect this will continue and intensify if the book becomes a hit.
First, I always thought Judas got a bad rap, [...]

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This is a pretty funny video and one of the weapons Christians — who usually take themselves so seriously — would be wise using against the New Atheists.

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My amigo, Gustavo Arellano of the OC Weekly and Ask a Mexican! fame, wrote a flattering blog post about my departure this week from the Los Angeles Times. In it, he said something particularly striking:
Now, Orange County has no full-time reporter covering religion at the Times or the Orange County Register–Orange County, California, home to [...]

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