“They stole $77,000. And that was all of my savings.” Her voice was so soft I (Doug) had to lean in to hear her. “I’ve talked with the local police, the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission. The money is...
When I was discerning the next step in terms of pursuing vocational ministry, a kind pastor friend suggested that I keep a notebook with me at all times. Strange advice to one just considering going to seminary, I thought. He…
“[And] they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.” (Luke 2.46, NRSV) This month hundreds of thousands of students flock back to school ready to learn, ready to read, and ready to…
By Bob Allen Calvin Miller, a longtime pastor, author and seminary professor, died Aug. 19, of complications from heart failure. Miller, 75, research professor of divinity and distinguished writer in residence at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala., since 2007,…
By David Gushee Tonight I enter a classroom at McAfee School of Theology where 80 students will gather for the introductory course in Christian ethics. Fully one-third of our students will be in this one class. I have been thinking…
Every couple years I put on my accountant hat and crunch numbers. Not the tax-paying accountant hat I put every year by April 15 and sweat over numbers. My number-crunching-accountant hat is the one I put on when I start…
“How many more daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, husbands, wives, friends—people created by and in the very image of God—have to die a horrific death before Americans will learn to lay down their guns?”…
By Jeff Brumley Sheryl Fancher likes to tell social media nightmare stories that make ministers cringe. Like the one about a pastor who posted derogatory remarks about church members on his Facebook page without realizing his account was set to…
When I Was a Child, I Read Books, Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) If Marilynne Robinson writes it, then it’s worth reading. With Pulitzer-wining Gilead, I fell in love with her fiction. Since then, I’ve been moved by her…
