. . . it is a thing of great beauty. Recently I spent a couple of days with Samuel Tolbert, the pastor/teacher of Greater St. Mary Missionary Baptist Church in Lake Charles, LA. [See the church at www.gsmmbc.net.] I have…
Monks and mediation
By Julie Pennington-Russell Seventy-five miles north of Santa Fe there’s a high desert canyon so ancient, so primordial, I half-expected to see pterodactyls in the sky instead of hawks as I steered my rental car along 13 miles of single-lane…
Healing the cop-community divide in Ferguson, Mo.
Michael Brown was unarmed when Darren Wilson gunned him down. Now the police chief of Ferguson, Missouri is suggesting that Brown was died because officer Wilson believed he had stolen a box of cigars. I suppose that bit of information is…
New wine for the Baptists
By Molly T. Marshall Our attitudes about new things are radically disparate. Some of us love new cars, new shoes, new books, new technology, but get really fearful when we consider new expressions of worship, gathered community, organizational structure and,…
What to do about ISIS? A Christian’s anguish
By Chuck Queen When I think about ISIS and what our response as a nation should be to their reign of terror my soul is in anguish. Why the anguish? Does ISIS not completely devalue human life and are they…
I can do more: a lament
August 2014 is a bad month. People are angry. Humans are dying. Cultures are dividing. These are the talking points we have to discuss: Depression is a disease. Ukraine is in turmoil. ISIS just beheaded an American journalist. Refugee children…
The sins of Sodom (and Gibeah): The LGBT issue, part 9
By David Gushee Follow David: @dpgushee Traditionalist Christians on the LGBT issue argue that there can be no legitimate same-sex relationships because they are banned by the Bible. Thus even where traditionalists acknowledge the existence of enduring same-sex orientation, they…
Like its name, ‘Calvary’ offers view of atonement
By Michael Parnell Calvary begins in a confessional in Ireland. Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson) listens to a man describe how he was raped as child by a priest. The man then tells Father James that he will kill him…
Receiving the Truth
In the first chapter of Romans, as Paul is laying out the general indictment of all humanity before bringing to bear the good news of the Gospel, he makes the observation that what can be known about God has always…