Three years ago, in June 2023, I was scrolling through the Amazon Kindle bestseller list. All the regular, normal, to-be-expected titles were at the top. But as I kept scrolling, the books began to change. Gone were the big names…
If you’re already afraid, just wait until you hear about Manhattan Project 2.0
Summers spent at my grandparents’ house in Tennessee were hot and humid. With enough cousins piled into the porch swing, you could stir up a bit of a breeze. But when that was no longer effective, we would retreat to…
‘A deal with the devil’: Religion motivates data center opponents in Texas
When Matt Long stood before the Granbury, Texas, city council zoning meeting back in April to oppose the influx of proposed data centers in Hood County, he likened them to a spiritual abomination.
Amazon’s Second Season Of ‘Hazbin Hotel’ Reinvents Christian Redemption
To understand post-Christian Western culture, watch “Hazbin Hotel.” As America continues to secularize and divide along religious and political lines, our culture is rewriting how we think about human nature and redemption. With its second season, “Hazbin” encapsulates our evolving…
Pope Leo XIV Clears Up Confusion When It Comes To The Amazon
In a moment of both theological significance and pastoral clarity, Pope Leo XIV made his most consequential intervention yet on the church’s role in the Amazon.
BNG columnist David Ramsey dead at 61
BNG columnist David Ramsey died at his North Carolina home Sunday, Dec. 11, after a brief illness. He was 61. “BNG greatly mourns the loss of this beautiful life among us, someone who courageously chronicled his own journey from cradle-roll…
Why you should be wary of preachers who are certain about everything
The minister of my Southern Baptist childhood church was a study in contradictions. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of my alma mater, Wake Forest University, he was an evangelical conservative; however, before my meeting with the ordination council of the…
Maybe the church needs pastors who aren’t entrepreneurs
I once was a “professional Christian.” Like David Ramsey, (who recently authored “What Could the Church Learn from Amazon?”), I also stepped away from the church, and I agree with him that part of the problem was “the pressures that…
What could the church learn from Amazon?
In 1994, Jeff Bezos left a lucrative job as an investment banker on Wall Street to start a company selling books on a new technology called the internet. Two years later, I left a non-lucrative career in ministry and entered…
We’re not just consumers, we’re a community, and we should spend like it
When we make a purchase, we’ve been conditioned to think about one thing: What’s the best deal for me? This is a selfish approach to purchasing habits. But it’s not necessarily our fault that we think that way. We’ve been…
Jesus and a union
Today, months of organizing comes to a climax as balloting ends in the quest to unionize some 6,000 workers at the Amazon fulfillment plant in Bessemer, Ala. The campaign — in this deep-red, right-to-work state — has enormous implications for…