Retelling the Old, Old Story: A Review of "God's Favorite Place on Earth"
We need to hear the old stories in new ways to understand our own story of life in Christ.
View ArticleWho Sinned? The Church Did: A Review of Amy Simpson's "Troubled Minds"
When churches ignore or marginalize mental illness, they fail at the most basic Christian calling: rescuing the perishing and loving the seemingly unlovable.
View ArticleCasting Down Our Own Idols: A Review of Elizabeth Scalia's "Strange Gods"
Knowing that the God who loves us totally wants to be loved totally in response offers a powerful counter to our very human failings.
View ArticleWhen We Talk About Christian Education: A Review of "animate.Faith"
Without active engagement in conversation about the life of faith -- what it is, what it might be -- most Christians remain in the shallow pool.
View ArticleThank God for Rowdy Women
Senator Davis' filibuster was a victory for rowdy women everywhere who know their rights and who refuse to be silenced.
View ArticleCan We Talk About Abortion?
How might we talk to each other with respect and in Christian love -- even when we completely disagree with each other?
View ArticlePreaching the Social Media Gospel
Today's church is already wired, and if your parish isn't taking full advantage of all of these ways of touching people throughout the week, it is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
View Article"What Do You Do There?": A Day in the Life at Gladstone's Library
Sometimes a place becomes so important to you that you can't imagine what your life would look like without it.
View ArticleTrayvon Martin, Self-Defense, and Christian Non-Violence: A Response to...
The conclusion reached in the new book Fight is clear and cannot be nuanced: the Christian tradition does not make an exception to violence in the case of self-defense.
View ArticleJohnny Football, Phil Jackson, and Jesus; Or, Why There Is No "I" in "Team"
For the sake of my kids -- of all the kids watching you grab at the high life -- could you please model a role a little more worth living?
View ArticleFaithful Fiction: A Review of "A Land Without Sin"
"A Land Without Sin" treats the great human themes -- love, faith, family, forgiveness, faith, good and evil, transformation -- that are also the great Christian themes.
View Article"Don Jon," Christians, and Porn
Don Jon, like many of us, is all about me and mine, and porn is emblematic of that selfishness.
View ArticleTaking the Dave Test? Learn to Tell the Truth
So much of our religious language seeks to insert meaning where there may be no meaning, or conversely to absolve God of a responsibility God doesn't even own.
View Article"Paul and the Faithfulness of God": Magisterial, and Yet Down to Earth
What N. T. Wright has given us in his two-volume study is the master class on Paul that I never had the chance to take in seminary.
View Article"Catching Fire": Spirituality and the Hunger Games, Part One
When we look closely at the sins of the Capitol, they are our sins -- exaggerated, to be sure, but still recognizable as our own.
View ArticleFreestyle Faith: Some Thoughts on Michael W. Waters' New Book
Despite our cultural differences, the Rev. Waters and I are both seeking ultimate meaning in a world that tries with all its might to distract us with secondary meanings.
View ArticleGod Made It, I See It, and That Settles It: A Review of "God and the Gay...
"God and the Gay Christian" could convince anyone wrestling with a biblical reason to support gay marriage and full gay inclusion in churches -- and everyone who ought to be.
View ArticleNot Your Father's Francis: Jon Sweeney's "When Saint Francis Saved the Church"
Unlike Christians of the past 500 years who focused on doctrine, Francis operated more like contemporary believers, who focus on correct practice.
View ArticleSeeing the World with Resurrection Eyes
The resurrection story, however we understand it, whether or not we can explain it, should make a difference in our minds and hearts. It's supposed to; that's what resurrection does.
View ArticleWhat Good Is Religion, Anyway? Why I Am Spiritual -- and -- Religious
I know why "spiritual but not religious" might seem to some people like a very good idea. But I also know this: religion saved me when spirituality could not.
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