From all that I have read, the Baptist Conference on Sexuality and Covenant [Herald, April 30] went just as I feared it would. Many speakers used fanciful and complex, but misguided, theological arguments to persuade participants that some homosexual and…
LETTER: Creationism vs. evolution
When God presented the account of how he created the world and universe in Genesis, he gave an explanation that was straight forward and easy to understand. We, of course, have no idea of what processes took place when he…
OPINION: Reading Scripture is like rock climbing
In a recent interview with the New Voice Media Group [which includes the Religious Herald, see May 28], I used rock climbing as an analogy for interpreting Bible passages about the role of women. Whether climbing a steep rock or…
OPINION: ‘Melancholia’ and the Good War
Death. Final, epic, Wagnerian death in a colossal collision between a rogue planet off-course and Earth. Somehow Melancholia makes it beautiful, poetic and completely and peacefully final. The film by director Lars von Trier is a sumptuous exploration of the…
WINN RECOMMENDS
Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, Mark Noll (Eerdmans) More than 15 years ago, Noll fired a shot across the bow of the evangelical ship with his book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. In those pages, he…
OPINION: Signs of the spirit
Rolling out with those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer is the longest and perhaps most difficult season of the church calendar. From May 27 until Nov. 23—24 Sundays in all—the Church is in a season simply known as “after…
VITAL SIGNS: Jesus on strategic planning
Building a congregation’s life around a clear vision and purpose is an easy thing to believe in. Aligning that purpose with biblical teaching and witness is an agreeable notion. I seldom encounter a leader or leadership group who resists the…
OUT LOUD
“Mormonism isn’t a denomination. It’s a different religion but calling it a ‘cult’ is not helpful.” Ed Stetzer The president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s LifeWay Research, in a tweet. (RNS) “Praise the Lord and pass the rattlesnakes, brother.” Mack…
Taize experience spiritually enriching for thousands
CHICAGO (RNS)—Every year, some 100,000 pilgrims trek to the Taize ecumenical community in France where the biggest attraction is the music, a throwback—way, way back, about 1,500 years or so—to repetitive plainchant. Last month, for the first time, the Taize…