My lectionary imagination jumped the rails, enamored by this month’s confluence of Jewish and Islamic holy days. For Jews the ten “Days of Awe” began with Rosh Hashanah this past Sunday at dusk, stretching through next Wednesday’s Yom Kippur observance.
Listening to the Pope
Most of us Protestants, perhaps, have not paid a lot of attention to what the Pope has said and done through the years. But things have changed somewhat since Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected Pope in February 2013.
7 habits of highly annoying clergy on social media
Clergy and social media. They go together like, well, selfie sticks and tourists. They might look ridiculous but that’s not going to stop them. And occasionally they produce something breathtaking.My Facebook timeline and Twitter feed are littered with posts by…
I’m tired of saying “I’m Sorry!”
I’m sorry. It may be the most common phrase in my work. I am sorry about the death; I am sorry about the diagnosis; I am sorry you didn’t like the music, the sermon, the temperature. It seems that I…
Top 4 ways to overcome isolation in rural ministry
Isolation in rural ministry can, for many, become deeply burdensome. Thomas Aquinas once stated, “Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.” As much as we may feel called to…
Fallen Christian leaders
What follows here is a guest post written by my colleague Joel Gregory. I do not know to whom he is specifically referring and it doesn’t matter. At least once every year we hear or read about a religious (usually…
Balking at Hawking’s rejection of God
Although it was a temptation, I resisted titling this article “Gawking at Hawking.” June and I have, though, been ” gawking ” at Hawking some this past couple of weeks. We first watched “The Theory of Everything,” the engrossing 2014…
What if schools enjoyed pork-barrel largesse and the military depended on corporate charity?
One recent slow morning, in late August, the grocery stores’ circulars in the newspaper caught my attention. I began to wonder how things might be different if certain fortunes were reversed. Instead of “back-to-school” it’s “back-to-basic-training” discount offers. Imagine, if…
Defining evangelicals with a mirror: A response to Russell Moore
“We demand the freedom of all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not jeopardize the state’s existence or conflict with the manners and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The Party as such upholds the point of…
Religion and irreligion: Friends or foes?
Atheists, agnostics, and other people who profess no religious faith have often been criticized, ostracized, ridiculed, discriminated against, and belittled. Especially in recent years such people have begun to fight back. Some of that fight has been rather hostile towards…
Common story, community and Christian higher education
(The following are my prepared remarks delivered as a devotion for the President’s Prayer Breakfast at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina on September 2, 2015.) The one unalterable date on our family’s summer calendar is the third week…
Guns, violence, and Christian faith
In June we were at the General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship when we received news of the shooting at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston. Yesterday I was at a denominational leadership meeting when we received word of…