Jan is a writer who lives with his wife, Joy, in Minnesota. In addition to writing this Blog, he is the author of fifteen books. His latest, Evangelicalism and the Decline of American Politics, will be published by Cascade Books in the summer of 2017. Jan has taught at the college and seminary level, the latter as a tenured senior faculty member at Lexington Theological Seminary until he chose to leave his position to join his wife, Joy, in moving to Minnesota where they started a new church. They retired from the new congregation after 14 years as co-pastors, allowing Jan to write full-time. Jan is also known for his preaching, having been the preacher of the week at the Chautauqua Institution and a guest lecturer across the country.
linnposts.com 
We live in a world of lies, lies and more lies so it’s refreshing…even gratifying… to know that we can count on Jan Linn to engage in discussion of important issues that affect all of our lives.
Thanks Jan! I need a daily dose of reality and to hear from people like you. The realities of life need to be exposed so we can live as the community of people we are meant to be. Les
It’s been along time since playing pass tag in the church yard at Fairview Christian or in the middle of Sackett Street with Mrs Godding yelling at us to stay out of her yard, But you hit the nail on the head with your NFL Blog. I have now been a high school and college official for 40 years and its easy to see the influence of the NFL and its thugs trickle down to young athletes in a game we both love. I don’t have all the answers, I just try to keep them apart on Friday night and Saturday. Great article, keep it coming.
Jim Creasy
Hi Jim. Great to hear from you after all these years. Your experience as a referee means your affirmation of my thoughts on the sport has more credibility than anything I said. Thank you for sharing your own views. (If you comment on the Blog instead of my bio page, more people will see your comments. Please keep your comments coming, even when you disagree with me!)
Jan, was there a guy named Crumm (sp) at u of R. with you that was all conference or of some note.
Jan, Bill Blackwell gave me a copy of A Different Jesus and was supposed to get you a copy of Insights From Inside. Thank you for addressing the path to heaven in your book. I have always been bothered by the exclusive mentality of so many religions. I also absolutely loved your comment on page 66 about people “concerned about my salvation.” I intend to do a piece using that thought for Huffington Post. I want to share a couple of pieces I wrote for Huffington Post with you. Titles— Are You Hiding Behind the Bible?—–The Play-Doh Theory of Life——–Habtiat For Humanity and My Rooftop Revelation———–“Cheap Funeral and Good Party”, An Amazing Final Gift. If the pieces don’t come up by simply Googling them, you can type the names into the search box on the home page at Huffington post. I hope one of these articles speaks to you. I also hope you see the potential in Insights From Inside and can help us get it in the hands of more young people. Thanks again, Tom Gerdy
Jan – it’s been a long time! You remember me from Kansas City? Would you have a few minutes for a phone call this week or next?
Hi Jan, I so appreciate your thoughts and speaking out. Thank you. Here is a link to an article which is challenging me deeply and I think you will find interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/opinion/liberals-conservatives-trump.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20171207&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=6&nlid=79188989&ref=headline&te=1
David, I read the article. I think these kinds of warnings to liberals are helpful in nudging us to self-examination. My own think parallels Steve Pinker who is mentioned near the end of the article more than with the others. That said, the element the article neglects is the person of Donald Trump. He is incapable of leading a movement in my judgment, which I think means he symbolizes unrest more than leading it. When he undoes himself (or, as we may discover, already has with his Russia ties), he will no longer be that symbol, and the emptiness of the movement, if that is the right term, will be exposed. Authoritarianism must have a leader or someone who is seen in that role even when they are not. In may respects I think the article gives too much substance to conservative angst. He rejects this, but I do think racism is playing a major role n what radical conservatives are feeling. I also think modernity has left them out in the cold because skilled labor is not in demand and pays less than what it once did. Uneducated people are in a serious bind and the economy has no way to help them. Re=training is hard and time consuming. There is no quick solution to that real problem. Thus, I believe much of the angst the right is feeling is not the fault of liberals or Democrats, but is the “future shock” Alvin Toffler wrote about in 1970. That makes it difficult to say or do anything that connects with the people experiencing it. They are emotionally off balance and until they regain it, I don’t think there is much to be done to help them. Just some quick thoughts. I will continue to ponder all of this and may write about it eventually.
Thank you for sending the link. Hope you are doing well, if that is possible these days.
Hello Jan,
Hope everything is going well with you. Do you have an opinion about Rev; Carlton Pearson?
Thanks,
Glenn Clements
Glenn, I don’t because I knew little about him until he got pushed out of evangelicalism. I think he now holds views very similar to most progressive Christians. I want to see the netflix film about him, while at the same time i am a bit skeptical of the need he still apparently has for publicity. Hope you are well.
Thanks Jan. there was a program on National Public Radio Saturday. They were telling about his life and his views. I thought about seeing the film but was not sure if I wanted to spend that time in seeing it..
thanks again , Glenn
Working on cleaning up old bookmarks and found your current work. Good to see and will follow.
“……Look Like, Part 2” is especially appreciated. I’ve never related to the two sides on abortion but accept it. Your comments (at SOJ) on Jewish belief that life begins when it could support itself was important to me though not an argument I was inclined to use with others.
Hope you and Joy are doing well!
Dan, how wonderful to hear from you. We think of you often, really. This is a contentious issue and I thought it important to try to bring a different perspective to it in hopes that it might add reason to a subject beset by extreme views. Thank you for writing, and for following my blog.
You may know Ron died Monday nite. Great guy
Yes, I received Kathy’s email. I am thankful we had a wonderful visit last January. He was the best of the best, and taught me how to do inner city ministry many years ago. Thanks for checking in on this.
Your friend Bill Blackwood, is he related to Roy Blackwood?
I don’t actually know. I will ask him.
Jon, I should have caught this before. My friend’s name is “Bill Blackwell,” not “Blackwood.”
The older we get, the nicer it is to remember past friendships. Whether it was a church/school setting or walking the streets of Ybor City buying a Panama hat, it’s nice to remember those times. Stay safe, Jan.
Hi Larry, how nice to hear from you. Indeed, the older I get the more special memories become, especially the ones I made in Florida. We had some good times together on more than one occasion. Hope you are doing well. Stay safe down there. Not sure your governor cares one way or the other. Thanks, again, for making contact. Would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the subjects I discuss from time to time.
Jan, I don’t know if you remember Dennis Phelps- he played football with you at U of R. This is his wife, Patsy. Dennis went into the Army and decided to make it his career. He was quite successful and was promoted to Colonel. Sadly he was diagnosed with cancer and died at age 46 after a two year battle. We have 3 children and I managed to get them all through college which I am very proud of! I was a school teacher for most of Dennis’ military career. I hope you are well. It sounds like you have had a wonderful, productive life. That makes me happy and I am sure Dennis has been smiling down on all of us.
Hello Mr. Linn,
This is Richard from Oregon. I’m 64. Have been really enjoying your book “ Unbinding Christianity”, which prompted me to learn a bit more about you. Found your linnposts website.
Attempting to practice the acceptance and unconditional love you write about, I find myself feeling “shocked”, as in electrically, by your article on the unvaccinated. It’s hard to find and feel that unconditional love when you refer to me and 100,000’s of other Americans that have chosen not to inject this experimental gene therapy into our bodies as “Stupid”. I want to list the main reasons why I have made this choice:
1). It has not been properly tested. The limited tests done on animals have not been made available to the public because every animal died. It normally takes 5-10 years of testing before a vaccine is released for public use.
2) The FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine is pure deception. According to the 13 page approval document, found on the FDA’s website, the only vaccine approved was for a different drug called Comurnity (sp?), which is not yet available for use. The existing one is still in EUA stage.
3) Real science is based on open and healthy debate. Anyone expressing any doubts or concerns is censored———-CENSORED! As have the use of other safe drugs shown to be effective. Nothing is being said about ways to strengthen our immune system, such as vitamins C and D and zinc. I went in for my yearly physical last week and asked my Dr. his thoughts about the vaccine. His only response was “I received a letter yesterday, from the state of Oregon, telling me I will loose my license to practice if I say anything negative about it” . Now, this level of suppression is not necessary for an illness with a 99.5% survival rate. ( according the CDC).
4) The elephant in the living room: the injection does not prevent acquiring or transmitting the disease. There has never been a successful vaccine for respiratory disease brought to market for use.
5) The VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) has reported over 15,000 deaths and 640,000 injuries from this injection in th USA so far. This should have required an immediate halt to its use.
I do have more, but wanted to show you that we are, in fact, not stupid. I am a caring, responsible person. I have a good relationship GOD. I would never want to infect another, but after 100’s of hours of research and of prayer, I am confident in my decision.
Please feel free to respond.
Richard Smallin
Eugene, OR
rds5719@gmail.com
Richard, I am glad you sent this comment. It would require a blog length response if I addressed all your points so I will respond to three. First, I was careful not to call you or anyone else “stupid.” What l said was, “‘The stupid’ is a phrase that has caught on that seems to be an appropriate description of the reasons unvaccinated Americans are giving to explain why they are doing what they are doing.” So what you heard is not what I said. Second, unconditional love has nothing to do with candid criticism of a person’s views or positions. Third, you references to VAERS on the CDC website raises questions about all your other points. VAERS is a data base the CDC set up in 1990 to allow people from all over the world to make comments, post stories, and report personal experiences related to adverse effects of vaccines of all kinds. None (NOT ONE) of these comments and stories has been verified as true, accurate, or reliable in connecting deaths to vaccines. These stories are just that – stories. They have no scientific value at all. That is the way the data base works. The CDC makes no effort to verify anything posted. It doesn’t have the staff to do so. It simply monitors the comments to detect any consistency in patterns of adverse effects that might warrant CDC follow-up. By making this reference as if VAERS is a factual report means you either don’t know its actual purpose or you are ignoring the truth about how it functions. I don’t know where you are getting your information, but I do know alt-right websites such as OPENVAERS are misusing the data on the site to promote false information to persuade people like you to believe things about the vaccines that are false. In short, the alt-right is disseminating propaganda that is killing people.
https://planetlockdownfilm.com/full-interviews/
This is well done and was quite an eye opener for me.
That was not the response I was expecting. My bad. Thank you. Jan
Just finished “Unbinding Christianity”. Truly enjoyed it and learned from it. Appendix 1 “My Story” expressed a level of insight, honesty, and humility that is very, very rare. Can’t wait to read another of your books. Thank you!!
Hi Jan, I did reply but it didn’t seem to make it to you. I hadn’t thought about negligence from VAERS because filing a report with them is very complex and confusing and requires at least 30 min. You do make a good point! I imagine they are understaffed. I keep hearing that, because of the time required to file, only about 10% of the deaths and injuries are reported to them. Finding the truth now is often exhausting. So who really knows? I do know that it is my right to decide what medical treatment I receive. Attempting to require, coerce, or shame people claiming we are irresponsible and selfish is not only unprecedented and wrong, it makes no sense to me. If the injections worked, there would be no concern about acquiring and transmitting the illness. The concern about variants seems misguided also because all viruses mutate approximately every 10 hours. You said you thought my sources of information were not very good. Here are a few of them:
1). childrenshealthdefense.org
2) swprs.org (Swiss Policy Research)
3). americasfrontlinedoctors.com
After reading your book “Unbinding Christianity”, I have great respect for you. I am not trying to win an argument or persuade you, only to get you to better understand my perspective. By the way, I am not left or right politically. I think this is another powerful dividing force in America now. I am afraid that if we don’t pull together, our constitutional republic will be completely lost. Thank you again for your books and other contributions. I have learned from you and you have given me spiritual insight and inspiration. Richard.
Hi Jan, I am Pastor Bill Waterman. I bought your book, What Ministers Wish Church Members Know, I really need to talk to you about it