The third most popular translation of the Bible has just become, officially, the unchanging word of God. The latest edition of the English Standard Version, or ESV, included a 52-word revision followed by a board vote declaring the text will…
Helicopter preaching
In early July, I called the Rev. Dr. Darryl Aaron, pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Greensboro, N.C. It was the latest moment in our country’s crisis of racism and violence, as we mourned Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. My…
Soaring cathedral attendance buttresses church worship figures
The Church of England is experiencing steady decline in numbers, but latest figures show attendance at England’s 42 cathedrals is soaring.
Religion and resistance at the new National Museum of African American History and Culture
The new museum’s Center for the Study of African American Religion aims to further research on the inextricable role spirituality has played in black America’s past and present.
Before the chasm is too great: Reflections on Luke 16.19-31
The Gospel reading for Sunday, Sept. 25, takes us to the bosom of Abraham. Well, technically Luke’s telling has angels carrying Lazarus to the bosom of Abraham after a life of isolation, neglect and suffering. The rich man who overlooked…
The missing gospel in Black Lives Matter
The summer of 2016 has been dubbed by some the Summer of Justice. As the presidential candidates held their conventions, unrest in America could no longer be contained. Demonstrations by grassroots chapters of the Black Lives Matter movement demanded justice…
Consortium for Global Education marks 30 years supporting ‘educational lighthouses’
Launching the Consortium for Global Education’s 30th year, participants from across the nation and around the world gathered Sept. 14-16 on the campus of Ouachita Baptist University for the organization’s annual meeting. The consortium, which was established in 1987 under…
Congressional chaplains: Can they welcome all religions and no religion at all?
If people from some religious backgrounds are given a place at this congressional podium, a wide range must be represented — including atheists — if we are committed to being a truly pluralistic nation.
Brian McLaren: 10 reasons I parted company with the Conservative Evangelical Project
The more deeply I engaged with the life and teaching of Jesus at the heart of my faith, the less enamored I became with the political project to which evangelicalism was giving its soul.
Transitions for the week of 09.23.16
A listing of staff moves, church news and more that is updated weekly.
The civility of discourse
“They’ll tell anything on you down in town.” So the serpent-handling woman says as she sits on her Appalachian front porch, killing flies and defending her church’s approach to the sixteenth chapter of Mark’s Gospel. Whether in cheap novels, academic…
Creating our own American hell
In the last several days, I have watched yet more police shootings, with compelling video evidence that the use of such force was highly unjustified. I watched a United States senator handily dismantle a Wall Street banker (in a hearing…
Artist’s faith and art forged in turbulent times
Had things gone according to his father’s wishes, He Qi would be one of China’s leading mathematicians today. But history — and more specifically Mao Tse-tung and his Cultural Revolution — had other ideas. “I was a teenage boy and…
The giving is the getting (or a pastor walks into an AIDS conference)
What I didn’t quite expect was the hugging, and the tears, and the trembling hands, and the cheers, and the prayers, and the singing, and the whispered exclamations of “I can’t believe you’re here, I didn’t think God still cared.”