While we are in no way beset by all that Dickens’ time portended, we have some choices about how to live in our own time.
As COVID-19 spreads, Millennial bashing and other blaming is unhelpful and un-Christlike
Millennial Christians, let’s not be reckless about potentially putting others at risk. Older Christians, please don’t assume that young people are being selfish and uncaring before you understand their circumstances.
An urgent appeal to my fellow ministers and other religious leaders: Suspend all public gatherings NOW
These are troubled times, but our faith and our traditions have prepared us for this work. This is the time to believe – and live into – our message.
Church and the coronavirus: practicing compassion and care even as we take precautions
I hope churches and other faith communities will find ways to celebrate the call to care for one another, even in – perhaps especially in – times of planetary peril.
Five reasons your church probably isn’t spending too much on personnel
If you buy into the popular myth – and faulty metric – that a church should devote no more than 50 percent of its budget to personnel costs, you may risk starving your congregation of its energy or life force.
Letter to the Editor – Responding to a commentary on heaven and hell
From Kirby D. Smith in Midlothian, Virginia
Work as religion: why Protestants need to let go of the Protestant Work Ethic
The rise of work as a religion has occurred during the decline of Christianity as a religion.
We’ve got plenty to be afraid of these days. So why does the Bible tell us not to fear?
The point is not what we fear, but what a life ruled by fear can do to us.
The church in exile: How will we respond to the marginalization of Christianity in American society?
Assuming the posture of exile is difficult and lonely. But could it be that the church’s loss of standing in American society is an opportunity to trust in God rather than in our privileged position?
Heaven-or-hell theology may be simple, but it is neither biblical nor morally defensible. What’s the alternative?
Most of our churches have left heaven-or-hell theology far behind, but we’re afraid to offer a viable alternative. It’s time for moderate and progressive mainline preachers to talk about the biblical vision of universal redemption.
How not-so-random acts of kindness from strangers transformed my latest air travel odyssey
“God has got this,” the attendant in the airport travelers’ lounge said. Indeed.
Moderate ministers and churches: Want to kill Church in America? Just keep doing what you’re doing
There will either be Church to embrace our LGBTQ brothers and sisters As They Are – and to embrace them completely, unreservedly, joyfully – or they will find community elsewhere. It’s that simple.