My Last Conversation with a Friend

In an odd bit of 21st century archaeology, we unearth archives of the deceased on our phones. For a year after my father died, I kept two voicemails from him, neither of which I could bring myself to play.

So it was that when Darrin Patrick died on May 7, just two weeks after I’d recorded a podcast conversation with him, I scrolled through a string of text messages between us that stretched back over a decade.

Among our sporadic communication was this message, dated Sept. 7, 2014: “Brother, i would love to talk. I need to apologize for some stuff Darrin Patrick.”

Darrin and I had crossed paths over the years, particularly in the early aughts, when we were both part of a group of young Gen X pastors who were trying to fix evangelical Christianity. But our paths diverged. The faction of which he was a part took a more conservative tack, while my posse followed a more progressive one and, sadly, we became rivals.

Read the rest at Religion News Service.