Pete Gall's Pulp Theology

If we’re going to have a relationship with God, we will either speak in the language of contract (and breach of contract) or covenant (a promise initiated and fulfilled by God).
And in either case, eventually the giant question arises: why does suffering exist?
If you’re a covenant person, looking to make sense [...]

Sometimes when I can’t fall asleep I turn on the Christian radio station and endure dregs for the occasional gem, and sputter off to sleep in either grumble or grace. A few nights ago I heard this song, written by a Puritan named George Matheson in 1882. I thought it was beautiful.
Say what [...]

Another of my favorites, seeing and listening to Nicholas – and maybe projecting some ideas about his life and Greek Orthodox world in for extra impact – feels like rye bread to me. Meaty, coarse, dense, old, pure, right. And maybe sometimes too hard for my soft palate, too scratchy for my childish and selfish [...]

If you can’t read poetry, you can’t read scripture. Once you read scripture, the poetry lives, and poets like Li-Young Lee dance in the joy of life.
From Blossoms by Li-Young Lee
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
From laden boughs, [...]

In another post, I talked about the poet James Kirkup being the last person England successfully prosecuted for blasphemy, and how I admire an artist who will risk his career for his art (don’t ever believe the two are one and the same). Scott Cairns is Eastern Orthodox Christian, and is serious about it. And [...]

Scott is probably my favorite poet. His gift is his ability to take an ordinary moment – and a small one (though the sample below is not a small one) – and hold it before me, to stun me, to hypnotize me, and then to fade back and leave my day better and life brighter [...]

For years, one of my favorite poems – one that has felt very much like me – has been James Kirkup’s The Poet. I’ll paste it in below. Part of what I like about the poem is the poet, who was the last person to be successfully prosecuted for blasphemy in England for [...]

Les is Australia’s leading poet, and one of my favorites. I admit that part of the reason I like him is his body (this is also a factor in my affection for GK Chesterton and Thomas Aquinas, by the way). I feel a certain kinship with his obvious struggle, and I think I know [...]