I thank Mark Isaiah David for reviewing Foy at 2nd Opinion. Back in 2002, a Baptist preacher from Texas launched a blog about faith and life and humorously titled it Real Live Preacher. RLP became an internet sensation, regularly receiving hundreds of thousands of hits, continuously ranking in the top ten most-popular blogs hosted by…
After Real Live Preacher died, I started a blog called Tertium Squid. Most of the writing there reflected my wanderings – still ongoing – through the wilderness on the outskirts of the Church. I wrote there about once a month or so for a number of years. But I think that blog has run its…
TO BE RELEASED MARCH 2017 New Novel by Gordon Atkinson Foy: On the Road to Lost, to be released March 1 from Material Media. Written as a series of connected stories, Foy: A Novel by Gordon Atkinson is where we meet Baptist minister Foy Davis. From boyhood adventures in Fort Davis and Houston, Texas, to his…
The Christian Century will published one of my works of surreal fiction. These are first person fictional stories that take an odd twist at some point, whereupon the reader realizes that we’re not in Kansas anymore. A few years back I wrote a lot of things for the Century. After I left the ministry, I…
You should read the story called True Believers before you read this. I should have called Sparks before I went to New Orleans. Why? Because he’s one of those guys who just knows things. If it’s strange, unexpected, out of place, forgotten, or downtrodden, Sparks knows about it. I should have called him. I should have.…
All the metaphysical questions remain alive within me, burning and roiling. They are my birthright and will not go away. The family of questions surrounding my physical reality in this culture and world have faded and finally become almost comical, like the old silent cartoons of cats and dogs, bobbing and grinning. There is an…
This is a somewhat early RLP piece, written when I was still anonymous. I’d guess it was 2003. I met Hugh Elliott, the man who writes Standing Room Only, by email back in December of 2002 when I began Real Live Preacher. Hugh sent encouraging messages and helped me figure out the software used by…
Not really on speaking terms. I don’t go to church anymore. That’s the down-and-dirty truth of it. I don’t. And I don’t plan to go back. I don’t plan not to go back. I just don’t plan. I don’t think about it one way or the other. So that’s what it’s come to. Real Live Preacher stopped…
It often begins with crazy people. They sense a deep movement, like animals feeling a coming tsunami. They howl and emote and act out. Their gibberish is like a dream. If you took the time to listen you’d find clues to the coming storm. Then we hear from the iconoclasts. They aren’t pure in heart.…
My final entry i think i killed real live preacher i didnt mean to i thought resigning as the pastor of covenant baptist church would be its own thing i thought it would remove something from my life that had become hard heavy too much i thought i could just cut that loose and then…