New blog. New decade. New hopes.

First off, welcome to Chrisicisms!

For the past five years I have kept a blog at www.xanga.com/thedubbs. Feel free to pop over there if you want a better understanding of who I am. The blog was my sanity point for the last five years of my 20s and I'm very grateful for the readers I gained during that time and hope many of them follow me over to my new home.

I've started this blog because I felt a new decade in my life deserved some changes. The xanga blog was great but, to be honest, became more of a journal too often than not. And with the popularity of Facebook and Twitter I've found that I don't have a need to write too many entries about my day-to-day life any longer. Rather, this site will be an outlet for my thoughts, views and questions on a variety of subjects, although I suspect that faith will be the cornerstone for it. Having grown up in the church, I still find my faith in Christ to be central to my life. But as I grow and learn, I learn that I'm a continual Christian agnostic--questioning, running away and then coming back to my faith time and again. As culture changes, my faith doesn't...but questions still arise about how to live it out and what it looks like in our modern world. What does it mean to love our enemies? To treat others as we'd like to be treated? Is it possible to preach the Gospel at all times and is it ever possible NOT to use words?

These are the questions I have that I find myself wrestling with and asking time and again. What does faith look like in political engagement? What does it look like when it mixes with our culture? How is faith expressed through the arts? This is what captures my interest and stimulates my thoughts and I invite you to take this journey with me. I invite dialogue and discussion, although my request is that we always keep it civil. We don't learn anything when we just listen to people we agree with nor do we grow without debate and argument. But those must be done in a manner of respect and thoughtfulness.

I look forward to this dialogue. I look forward to meeting new readers, growing new friendships and learning new things. Let's both approach the Gospel not with a sense that we have it figured out but with the idea that we're about to try and take a sip from a fire hose...

Now let's get drenched.