Anthony B. Robinson

https://www.anthonybrobinson.com/
Tony is a writer, teacher, speaker and ordained minister (United Church of Christ). He served as Senior Minister of Seattle’s Plymouth Congregational Church for fourteen years. His newest book is Useful Wisdom: Letters to Young (and not so young) Ministers. He divides his time between Seattle and a cabin in Wallowa County of northeastern Oregon. If you’d like to know more or receive his regular blogs in your email, go to his site listed above to sign-up. If you would like to subscribe to Tony’s Substack blog you can do so at anthonybrobinson747.substack.com
Reflections

The Malaise of Our Times: Trump Is Stealing Our Soul

Something precious is being degraded and demeaned on a relentless, and — though it is a terrible word to use — “casual” basis. Our national identity, our soul.
Reflections

What T.S. Eliot has to say about Trump’s Venezuela Adventure

What I know, from some decades of observing such “triumphs,” is that the triumph phase tends to be short-lived, while the subsequent phase(s) are long-lived and tragic.
Religion

Christmas in Three Acts: Part 3–The Bold Assertions of John

John isn’t so much giving us a birth story as he is proclaiming and celebrating the truth of the invisible God taking human form and being revealed in Mary’s boy and Pilate’s victim.
Religion

Christmas in Three Acts: Part 2–Mary and the Shepherds

In Luke we have the journey to Bethlehem, the manger (no room at the inn!), the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks, and the angelic choir singing.
Religion

Christmas in Three Acts: Part One — Joseph at the Center

Gospel (as opposed to Law) is different, strange, weird, and actually offensive. Gospel says that when it comes to saving souls and putting broken lives back together, God does the work.
Religion

Growing Better Church Leaders: Letting go of the lens of Suspicion

“Suspicion is a default of the Western academy, where many theological schools are embedded. The cost of privileging this vinegary approach to reading a text or a situation is high. To change the world, we need an ‘I have a dream’ speech, not an ‘I have a complaint’ speech.”
Crime

Why Is Ballard So Crime-Ridden?

Ballard seems to be an outlier to which city government and Seattle Police seem indifferent. Yes, “Little Saigon” may be worse, and I’m sure Ballard isn’t completely unique. But it’s bad.
Books

“Everyone You Meet Is Fighting A Great Battle.”

There’s a kind of unspoken conspiracy to ignore how difficult life is, or to reframe it as something romantic — a heroic challenge to overcome on our way to the good life. In this conspiracy we each try to hide our scars, even from those closest to us and sometimes even from ourselves.
Religion

Are People Really Heading Back to Churches?

According to a new book, those attending church services more than weekly at age 20 have “a roughly seven-year greater life expectancy than their nonchurchgoing peers.” Church-going protects against alcohol, smoking, and drug abuse; and decreases the odds of depression by one-third.”
Books

Affordability and a Quest for Meaningful Work

What happened to people in the extractive economies of coal and logging may now be happening to those in the tech economies. This may be the Black Swan — the one you didn’t see coming — not only for kids with a freshly minted degree in computer science, but for a President who has promised to “make America great again.”
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