With Black History Month upon us, some white folks will be moving across typical racial dividing lines and entering into what’s known as Black Space, which I define as a place where Black people are in charge and make up…
Politics, faith and mission: A conversation with Russell Moore
Russell Moore is editor in chief of Christianity Today, the flagship publication for American evangelicals, and author of the book Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America. But I’m sure many of you remember him as the former…
Valentines, ashes and the sixth anniversary of the Parkland School Shooting
For only the fifth time this century, Ash Wednesday shares the same date as Valentine’s Day, and the two will coincide only once more for the remainder of the 21st century. There is something strangely beautiful and paradoxical about these…
Are Mike Johnson, Mitch McConnell and many key Republicans really Christians?
It was “in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians” (Acts 11:26). This verse of Scripture struck one side of my brains just as the other side revolted, “They are not Christians!” This simultaneous scriptural recollection and…
The gospel according to comeuppance
Sixty years ago this year, I experienced a profound sense of “Christian comeuppance,” at a student-oriented retreat sponsored by Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. It was my first semester at Texas Wesleyan College (now University), and the retreat…
Politics, faith and mission: A conversation with Jessica Wai-Fong Wong
Jessica Wong is the author of Disordered: The Holy Icon and Racial Myths, an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and teaches systematic theology at Azusa Pacific University. I was drawn to her work because like me she is…
Of Henry Blackaby and John the Baptist
Mixed emotions nearly kept me from writing this tribute to Henry Blackaby, who died Feb. 10 at age 88. I hadn’t talked to Henry in years, but long ago, when he was at the height of his influence in the…
My strategy to survive a toxic political year
In 1959, more innocent days, the Kingston Trio sang The Merry Minuet: “The whole world is festering with unhappy souls, the French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles, Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch, and I…
‘Sustainable’ houses of worship are missing their best chance to save the planet
Today, fewer Americans belong to a house of worship or attend services regularly. The decline in religious participation offers challenges — and opportunities — for congregations determined to pursue environmental sustainability. The teachings of most religions and denominations encourage, if…