Phillip Stephens

Portugal

Writer at Medium

Author of Cigerets, Guns & Beer, Raising Hell and The Worst Noel on Kindle, Nook and iBooks.

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Articles

Twelve Christians, One Bible, and Zero Agreement: What That Tells Us

2 weeks ago | medium.com | Phillip Stephens

How Perception, Power, and Personality Shape What We Call “Biblical Truth”MY LIFE, LITERALLY, BEGAN WITH A DEBATE over matters of faith. As a Southern Baptist minister (and considered a heretic by more conservative Baptists in our family), my father believed dancing was a sin. My mother, being raised Presbyterian (worse than interracial marriage to both families), thought dancing was perfectly acceptable in the eyes of the Lord.
Biden Replacement Clone Fails in Assassination Attempt

3 weeks ago | medium.com | Phillip Stephens

Drumpf warns American: “Cloned voters will steal 2028 election”FORMER/CURRENT/SOON-TO-BE-FOREVER President Donald Drumpf survived yet another assassination attempt, the White House reported earlier today. The assassin escaped but has been identified as a rogue Joe Biden clone who replaced the former President after his execution in 2020. During the shooting the President lost his left ear.
Leaving Neverland: A Journey Toward Spiritual Maturity

3 weeks ago | philliptstephens.substack.com | Phillip Stephens

Originally published in The Backyard Church, May 19, 2025. The complete article, including an analysis of infantile Christianity and its effect on American Christianity and politics is available to paid subscribers. A KID ASKED HIS DAD why he didn’t get revenge, and accidentally exposed the problem with much of American Christianity. I caught just a few minutes of an NPR interview in which an author spoke of a conversation with his young son who’d read his autobiography.
Wind Eggs Is On Vacation

1 month ago | medium.com | Phillip Stephens

AFTER ANOTHER STAY AT THE HOSPITAL, I realized that I’ve let some bigger projects slide to deliver Wind Eggs five days a week for five years. So I decided to pause the publication for the summer to focus my efforts elsewhere. But I haven’t forgotten you, and I already have several weeks queued to release after my return. Starting in June I will be posting a new series of 270 character stories on X/Twitter and Bluesky on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.
Leaving Neverland: A Journey Toward Spiritual Maturity

1 month ago | medium.com | Phillip Stephens

What It Means to Grow Up in Christ — and Why the Church Desperately Needs ItA kid asked his dad why he didn’t get revenge, and accidentally exposed the problem with much of American Christianity. I caught just a few minutes of an NPR interview in which an author spoke of a conversation with his young son who’d read his autobiography. The boy asked why his father hadn’t gotten even with the people who had wronged him.
Iconography and Idolatry

1 month ago | philliptstephens.substack.com | Phillip Stephens

SCHISMS HAVE DIVIDED THE CHURCH since the time of the Apostles, when Paul and the Church at Jerusalem quarreled over Christians’—especially gentile Christians—observance of the law. One schism threatened to split the church for two centuries as the first millennium approached. Iconoclasts believed any image of the divine constituted idolatry. The Pope outlawed icons after a volcanic eruption in the Aegean Sea convinced him God was punishing the church for the spread of icons.
If Wishes Were Surfboards

1 month ago | medium.com | Phillip Stephens

If you’re in above your head, you’re not ready for the wading poolKEANU STOOD AT THE EDGE OF THE SURF with his board planted in the sand along the Boca Chica shoreline. The wind blasted his heavily moussed hair and rippled the backs of his shorts like flags. His wife Jean scanned the horizon with her hand shading her brow despite the clouds crowding the overhead skies. “Are you fucking nuts?” The rain battered their faces, their bodies, dug pits in the sand.
Game of Sands

1 month ago | medium.com | Phillip Stephens

Don’t call it separation. Call it role playing. BOB AND ALICE SPREAD THEIR TOWELS ON THE BEACH and shouted at the kids to stay in sight. And, as soon as they turned away, the kids scampered off. Bob positioned the umbrella so that the shadow covered all of his towel. “I told you not to break eye contact. But you never listen.”Alice didn’t listen because Bob was always telling her she didn’t listen. Besides, she was too busy looking for the kids.
Eye of the Beholder

1 month ago | medium.com | Phillip Stephens

One man’s biscuit is another man’s gooey cakeBRAD AND CHAD SAT ON THE BEACH lathering themselves with SPF 100 sunscreen, drinking El Pisciare Beer by the can from their cooler, and listening to their playlists on their iPhones. When Gen-Zers passed, they’d tip their sunglasses and raise their thumbs in solidarity. When older couples passed, they’d look away and take another sip from their beers, as though middle and older age was a contagious disease.
Changing Times

1 month ago | medium.com | Phillip Stephens

The good old days were always better because you don’t have to live with themSNAPTAIL THE BABY SHARK and her grandpa Sawtooth broke free of the frenzy and swam toward the shore. When I say “baby shark,” I’m speaking relatively because Snaptail was a Greenland shark and Greenland sharks live as long as five hundred years. Which was almost how old grandpa shark was. Snaptail shark just turned ten (although sharks don’t keep track of birthdays, not having calendars to mark on).