“This Is Halloween” is the opening song to Tim Burton’s 1993 stop-motion animated film, The Nightmare Before Christmas. The movie is set in Halloween Town, a city where the community focuses on Halloween, under the leadership of the Pumpkin King,…
Rich Villodas wants to build a world that’s good and beautiful and kind
Rich Villlodas describes himself humbly and with certainty: He’s a husband to his wife, Rosie, a father to two beautiful children, a son, a pastor and a follower of Jesus. Through his books and his tenure as pastor of New…
Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King and Critical Race Theory
Opponents of teaching Critical Race Theory in U.S. classrooms allege that it indoctrinates impressionable students and, worse, makes them feel responsible for past injustices they had no part in. Much time is devoted to such indictments and to efforts to…
Choosing the underdog
Growing up, I was short and stocky, which made me a less-than-prime candidate for athletics. In seventh grade, I wanted to play football like my friends. I was too small to be a lineman and too slow to be in…
Letter to the Editor: Responses to the livestream worship debate
Letter to the Editor: February 17, 2022 Dear Editor: I am grateful to the many people who responded to my opinion piece, “A Cautious Case Against Livestreaming Worship.” The readership for this less than 800-word piece far exceeds any of…
Can we talk about Encanto?
Warning: Spoilers ahead. It took the boredom of an icy winter day to convince my tween and teen sons to watch the new Disney animated movie Encanto with me. I had heard the catchy songs topping the Billboard charts and…
A response to Tish Harrison Warren about livestreaming worship
“I think it’s time to drop the virtual option,” says Tish Harrison Warren in an op-ed for the New York Times, arguing that churches should stop livestreaming their services. She explains: “Bodies, with all the risk, danger, limits, mortality and vulnerability…
Intrigue visits a booth at BubbaDoo’s
Isn’t it funny how the best comedy and the most intriguing fiction usually write themselves? The more I visit the old general store, the more fascinating I find the people-watching there to be. That’s because I’m getting to know the…
Churches that took COVID seriously built trust outside the church, survey says
Religious groups came through the COVID-19 pandemic with relatively higher levels of trust than most other institutions yet also fostered suspicion with a majority of Americans for spreading misinformation about vaccines and putting profits ahead of the well-being of local…