Originally from Alabama, David now lives in St. Louis, MO with his wife and daughter. Accordingly, he has a great love for both grits and toasted ravioli. He's been a Mockingbird reader since 2012.
About David Clay
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QAnon, Faith, and Skepticism
About a month ago, I listened to an NPR story on the growing popularity of the QAnon conspiracy theory among white evangelical Christians. QAnon is actually a hodgepodge of related theories, but the basic idea is that President Trump is waging a secret (?) war against a cabal of satanists/pedophiles/vampires who surreptitiously run the country. […]
“Where is the Promised Joy?”
John P. McNamee’s 1995 memoir, Diary of a City Priest, traces a year of his parish ministry in inner-city Philadelphia. It’s a tough read. McNamee does his best to minister spiritually and physically to parishioners and neighbors alike, aware at all times that his efforts don’t begin to budge the needle of intergenerational poverty and […]
Running with Scissors: on Polarization and God’s Love for Sinners
Amazon Prime is currently streaming the bulk of the Star Trek canon, so I’ve been nostalgically revisiting some of my favorite episodes from The Next Generation and also working my way through Deep Space Nine for the first time. Besides a cast of characters who have become household names, Star Trek is famously rich with […]
Bottom of the Ninth: Baseball and the Eternity of God’s Love
Baseball’s back — with a truncated season, the universal DH (a bitter pill for this National League snob to swallow), and deep uncertainty involving the ongoing pandemic — but it is back nonetheless. I could hardly be more grateful. Besides the joy inherent in the game itself, it’s a huge relief to transfer some of […]
Freedom to Be … Bored?
Starting around mid-June, people in our St. Louis suburban neighborhood began shooting off fireworks every night (illegality notwithstanding). Both firepower and frequency steadily increased until the climax on Independence Day. Some households had clearly spent hundreds of dollars apiece for the occasion, particularly on the heavy-duty artillery shell fireworks. The action was quite literally non-stop […]
Martin Luther on Where to Find God: Suffering and the Cross, Glory and Majesty
Shortly before his death in 2002, renowned paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould was asked what he would write to an extraterrestrial if given the opportunity. He replied that he’d start off by asking if his alien pen-pal was made up of DNA or something else. “And the other thing,” Gould continued, I will give to you […]
“You Meant It for Evil”: The Gift of Unintended Consequences
The Conservative Disposition and God’s Unstoppable Plan
The God on the Cross: How Christianity Rigged the System
Nietzsche on Dishonest Christians and the ‘Offense’ of the Crucifixion
Biblical Criticism and Rational Ignorance
How God Responds to Sophisticated Arguments Against Christianity (SACCs)
Freud, Wish Fulfillment, and the Gospel
Thankful for this one from David Clay. The chief end of man, according to my two-year-old daughter Ellie, is to eat as many cookies as possible. Her destination of choice is “the bakery,” which is not a specific location but rather a term encompassing any number of local coffee houses, restaurants, and at least one […]
Adam Smith and the Nature of Heaven
This one comes to us from David Clay. Adam Smith, widely acknowledged as the father of modern economics, was first and foremost a moral philosopher by trade. Nearly two decades before Wealth of Nations (1776) revolutionized the world’s understanding of economics, Smith had established his philosophical reputation throughout Europe with The Theory of Moral Sentiments […]
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