Jon Trott. I am an Anglo male afloat in the fog-covered ocean of middle age. I am a Jesus Freak. I am a skeptic. I am a writer — have won some awards and also have been called a “Satanist” or “Cult apologist” or “Socialist / Marxist” by those who didn’t like what I wrote. I am a communard (more […]

Dear Friends, Jesus People is building an email list for their Wilson Abbey newsletter, most likely being sent out four times a year highlighting best events as well as providing exclusive content such as free eBooks, music downloads, interviews, and videos. Exclusive content means that the information or special offers will not be publicized on their website or social media […]

“…to have a self, to be a self, is the greatest concession made to man, but at the same time it is eternity’s demand upon him.” – Soren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death This morning my dearling Carol read to me from a book by William Backus, Christian psychologist and faithful friend until his passing last year. The book’s title, […]

[Published 2006 originally.] Time to celebrate! March is women’s history month. I’d like to list a few women who’ve greatly influenced me in my ongoing journey to become more authentically human. 1. My wife, Carol Elaine. I’d have to write a volume or nothing. 2. My mother, Lucile Hanford Trott, a strong and intelligent woman who gave us poetry, flowers, […]

Forgive the wry title. And forgive the rambling, unkempt nature of what follows. But what happened to the word “cult” in the 1980s has now also happened to the word “terrorist.” Religious scholar Gordon Melton, I believe, once defined “cult” this way: “A cult is a religious group that we do not happen to like.” I would suggest this: “A […]

[This post of mine first appeared on the new Project12 website.] Paul is essentially first and foremost a hero of religion. The theological element in him is secondary. Naivete in him is stronger than reflection; mysticism stronger than dogmatism; Christ means more to him than Christology, God more than the doctrine of God. He is far more a man of […]

The fact that African American history, culture, and especially literature means so much to me can be (and probably should be) cause for suspicion. But rather than in futility attempt to submerge into my own motives (and the motives for those motives, and the motives for the motives of those motives), I’d like to offer some quotes (and maybe, maybe […]

I promised I’d try to do better by African American women in the literature department. And in the process, I seem to have rediscovered an incredibly powerful voice that for me may end up a star in my personal galaxy. I’d seen the movie of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and also read various bits of her […]

I’m taking my time getting back to the novelists. Today, I’m swinging back to one of, if not the, first African-American poet, Phillis Wheatley. Phillis Wheatley’s name, as with so many slave names, unintentionally mapped her history. Phillis was the name of the slave ship that brought her to America; she was only (according to her eventual owner in a […]