Hey, thanks for reading my blog. Here are the 13 posts that you/others read the most this year:

1) Standard rule: Don't give the Phelpses of Westboro any ink of any color. I broke it to flag the remarkable story of Megan Phelps-Roper.

2) Apparently Chris Tomlin doesn't love the spotlight. Yet he keeps booking arenas.

3) In which the MSM talks about church music even more reductively than usual

4) The Barna Group thinks I'm a "notional Christian." I'm not wild about this.

5) In defense of Mel Bringle, who faced the divine wrath of the internets for being insufficiently enamored of the satisfaction theory

6) Eight things the fall chaos on Capitol Hill wasn't about. Hey, I finally wrote a listicle! Next year I'll show up equally late to the "you won't believe what happens next" headlining party.

7) What the National Cathedral has in common with the institution of marriage. Hint: It's not that the gays and the liberals are attacking it.

8) Why it doesn't surprise me that some Nones aren't fans of the rise of the Nones

9) On the alleged epidemic of "crack babies," and why they should really be called "poverty babies."

10) Why won't Chipotle just use less meat? Three specific menu suggestions for the would-be sustainability leader. (Their tofu option came to Chicago right after I wrote this, though I still like these ideas even better.)

11) T. F. Charlton thinks the media ignores Jason Collins's faith because he's black. I think she's right, though I think it's also because he's not conservative enough for evangelicals to wholeheartedly claim him.

12) On Tamerian Tsarnaev's body and the dreadful prospect of letting the dead terrorists win by treating their remains with a shred of dignity.

13) Don't cut food stamps benefits. Don't cut them a lot; don't cut them a little. Just don't.

Steve Thorngate

The Century managing editor is also a church musician and songwriter.

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