I’m waiting for the day when people think businesses ought to be run like churches. You know, more interested in helping people than turning a huge profit. It’s only fair, because for so long church members have demanded that their…
The guest preacher who was a fortune teller
You don’t often get fortune-telling in a Baptist church, so when it happens, you sit up and take notice. Perhaps “prophecy” is a better descriptor. I was about 13 years old, slightly more concerned with whether a boy was going…
The church is called to DEI
Before taking office, Donald Trump promised a crackdown on diversity initiatives. In the weeks following the inauguration, some might say he’s overdelivered on his promise, shutting down federal DEI offices and putting all federal employees that work in such programs…
The inevitable invisibility of aging women in the church
In a 2019 essay for The Atlantic, Akiko Busch asks, “How might a woman’s identity evolve when she can go unrecognized, when she is no longer under the gaze of others?” The essay asserts an ultimate freedom of choice: because…
Responding to the militarization of immigration policy
On Nov. 18, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced plans to declare a national emergency and deploy the military to enforce mass deportations as soon as he’s back in office. For many, this decision feels unprecedented, a stark departure from the…
Two young leaders exemplify the alarm over Trump
Donald Trump’s return to the White House is “the absolute worst case scenario,” according to religion scholar Matthew Taylor. “We’re in an epochal shift in American history of the worst sort, and while it does not spell the absolute end…
3 things I learned from discussing politics in the church
I have heard many Christians say, “I don’t want to hear politics in the church!” Churchgoers who make such a statement might not want to hear partisan politics in the church. Partisan politics is political activity that advocates for or…
The political pulpit
Last Sunday, on my way to a neighboring church, I was struck by the sea of political signs lining the road — billboards and bumper stickers promoting candidates for every conceivable office. It’s that time of year again — campaign…
In post-Christian Germany, Taylor Swift music brings people to church
Grossing more than a billion dollars in ticket sales and crossing five continents, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is a juggernaut of a production. Although the university town of Heidelberg, Germany, didn’t make the list of tour stops, fans could still…
Why children are behaving differently at church after the pandemic
It is now June 2024, and we are four years away from the beginning of the COVID-19 experience in the United States. But the ripple effects of the pandemic are still being felt in church children’s ministries. As an educator…
Jesus will not rescue America without our help, Pavlovitz says
Prayerfully waiting for God or the “arc of the moral universe” to heal America’s political, racial and religious divisions will do nothing to alter the nation’s downward spiritual and moral trajectory, activist and author John Pavlovitz said. In fact, no…
My hybrid church
Let me tell you about my church. My church meets every Friday from noon until around 6:30 p.m. My church has no pews but plenty of folding tables and chairs as well as boxes and bins filled with groceries. My…