The idea of making Charlie Kirk a martyr never would have occurred to me because he espoused an ideology I find unacceptable and un-Christian. He didn’t deserve to die, but dying doesn’t make one a Christian martyr. The idea was…
We are all complicit in Charlie Kirk’s death
The devastating news that Charlie Kirk has been murdered at an event at Utah Valley University seems beyond belief. The evening news carried the awful news. A single bullet ended Kirk’s life. Perhaps Shakespeare’s most famous lines weigh heavily on…
Ending homelessness is a humane priority
The Trump administration recently issued a sweeping executive order on homelessness that dismantles support for the “housing first” model. The order pushes communities back toward punitive approaches, tying housing to mandatory treatment or abstinence, expanding involuntary institutionalization and even encouraging the criminalization…
The evidence-based path from protest to power
I know activists who have protested every American military action since the Korean War. They’ve spent decades hitting the streets to try and end needless death and destruction. Their moral determination is powerful, and they’ve kept resistance alive when others…
How Charlie Kirk went from college dropout to Trump influencer
From BNG’s coverage earlier this year, first published April 15, 2025: It seems Charlie Kirk — the Millennial founder of the Christian nationalist powerhouse Turning Point USA — is everywhere these days. He was part of a handful of…
Chattel slavery: Bad news then and now
I am pleading for my people, A poor, downtrodden race, Who dwell in freedom’s boasted land, With no abiding place. While I bear upon my body The scars of many a gash, I am pleading for my people, Who groan…
What are Christians to make of this season’s South Park?
The television show South Park first aired in 1997, the same year I graduated college. I don’t remember watching it right away, but by the second season, I was an avid fan. I was drawn to the show’s total irreverence…
Here’s another reason Calvinism is morally bankrupt
Note: This article includes detailed discussion of child sexual abuse in the context of why God allows suffering in the world. Now the TheoBros are using the gospel to spread indifference about the rape and murder of 10-year-old girls….
Garrison Keillor: The Pied Piper of liberal Mainline nostalgia
Garrison Keillor is still on the road at 83. From 1974 to 2016, he was on the radio practically every Saturday night at 5:00 Central Time. The show was called A Prairie Home Companion. If you’ve read this far, you…
What’s next for John MacArthur’s church and preaching ministry?
If ever there were a ministry built around one person, it is “Grace to You,” the broadcast ministry of the late John MacArthur. And Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, where MacArthur served as pastor 55 years, is not much…
This book tells the honest story of preachers and preaching
On Sunday afternoons, after preaching, I often feel wrung out — so spent that all I can manage is to sink into the couch with a novel or binge-watch mindless television. Early in my ministry career, I wondered if other…
What we learned from Hurricane Katrina
“We weren’t refugees. We were Americans. But to the world, we were treated like we didn’t belong.” — Ricky Fountain, Katrina survivor now living in Arkansas Twenty years ago today, Hurricane Katrina did more than flood a city; it…