Dan, I've been reading your posts for some time now, and enjoying many of them. I have to admit, I enjoyed them more in the past than the present. I left the church and my personal faith as a teen... for many of the reasons you spell out in your posts, including this one. (The lack of humour killed something in me!)

BUT, I have to say I wonder to what degree the pushes and pulls of this platform are at work on you.

I'm a professional writer, I've published many books, I've been writing on Medium for a couple years... and make so very little and have small readership. I think this is because I rarely write about anger-invoking things or things provocative. And of course, this platform is impossible to move unless you do, surely!

But I've enjoyed your thoughtful albeit quieter pieces. Lately you seem to be pulled into the negative, the baiting titles. Just an observation. But you could write about the types of Christians we might want to be, those we might seek out to spend time with, the nourishing ones, and those that we might aspire to be ourselves. Read a handful of Anne Lamott essays, maybe :) Many of your recent articles could be turned around, looked at from a different perspective...

in the past few years of my life, I've returned to faith, in my own way, and I try hard to avoid the garbage. I want the best of it! There's enough neg all around. I'm looking for the uplifting (without the saccharine of so many traditional devotional stuff, etc.) I want the thoughtful sustaining stuff. The stuff you used to write.

And I apologize if I offend, and you've no need to forgive me :)