Text Messages

Text Messages

money Archives

Blogging against poverty

posted by Patton Dodd | 11:50am Wednesday October 15, 2008

As I was writing that earlier post on Apple’s new MacBook, drooling over a product I want but absolutely do not need, I got a timely dose of reality. My Twitterific updated itself and showed me a long series of [...]

Max Lucado’s Lamentation

posted by Patton Dodd | 5:18pm Thursday October 9, 2008

This is pretty remarkable–you’d think that Max Lucado, of all pastors, would offer an encouraging word, delivered with a smile, about the economic woes facing people today. But instead, he delivers nothing short of a lamentation. The message, essentially, is [...]

Collect: Prayer for the Week

posted by Patton Dodd | 12:49pm Monday September 22, 2008

Sometimes the timing of these things is uncanny. I spent part of the weekend with my stomach in knots and my head in fits over the news about the economy. The macro-level questions about the near future of our national [...]

We Forgot that Borrowers Have to Be Able to Repay

posted by Patton Dodd | 11:05am Sunday September 21, 2008

Barry Ritholtz observes that one way to look at the current economics crisis is as a five-year hiccup in our approach to lending.  Over the entire history of human finance, the underlying premise of all credit transactions — loans, mortgages, [...]

Previous Posts

The Last Text Message
Today is my last day with Beliefnet, and my last day as the author of this blog. The Text Messages archives will remain live at this location, but posting will cease. If that sounds gloomy, it's an accurate reflection of my mind this afternoon. I've chosen to pursue new opportunities, but I'm n

posted 3:47:12pm Feb. 04, 2009 | read full post »

Quitting Church: A Q&A with Julia Duin
Why do people stop going to church? This big question is the subject of Julia Duin's small book, Quitting Church: Why teh Faithful are Fleeing and What To Do About It. Duin is not a disinterested observer of the phenomenon of church-dropping; rather, she's a churchgoer who wants churches to work wel

posted 4:03:51pm Feb. 03, 2009 | read full post »

Rob Stennett vs. Marilynne Robinson
I'm overjoyed that my good friend Rob Stennett has won the Award of Merit from Christianity Today for his novel The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher. (Here's CT's review of the book.) Stennett's hilarious book is about a real estate agent who joins a suburban church in order to reach the Christian h

posted 2:36:44pm Jan. 30, 2009 | read full post »

What is spiritual restoration?
Slate asked for an essay on Ted Haggard's spiritual restoration. I'm okay with what I came up with for now, but the more I think about it, the more I think we need better thinking on what restoration looks like for very public, outspoken, influential men and women like Haggard:Most people who fail n

posted 9:00:56am Jan. 29, 2009 | read full post »

It's Not TV; it's Ted TV
A blog might not be the best medium for an essay like this. But I want to offer some more considered thoughts on Ted Haggard and his HBO documentary; I hope this performs some kind of service in a story that I hope will end--in its public iteration--very soon. This was written as a stand-alone essay

posted 3:57:44am Jan. 28, 2009 | read full post »


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