Mallory Challis’ recent analysis — “Most Americans believe in heaven or hell, but their ideas aren’t always biblical”— of what people believe about the afterlife begs a question: Which works better to incentivize behavior, heaven or hell? It’s a variation…
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…
The brutal honesty of The Book of Mormon
I’ve seen the hit Broadway musical The Book of Mormon twice. Deliciously blasphemous, it is as profound as it is profane. It’s also brutally honest and theologically instructive. Written by the creators of South Park (Matt Parker and Trey Stone),…
What I learned at Wake Forest Baptist Church
I was saddened, but not surprised, at the announcement that the Wake Forest Baptist church, whose members met in Wait Chapel on the campus of Wake Forest University for 66 years, is dissolving. I am sad because I’m a graduate…
Reflections on my mother’s funeral: The heart has reasons
While I was writing my first book, my 85-year-old mother died unexpectedly. She was in an assisted living facility, but she had no serious health issues. She entered the hospital severely dehydrated and was in acute renal failure, although she…
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…
How Donald Trump became god
Few historical events have captured the attention of Americans, if not the world, more than the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States in 2016 and the dizzying, polarizing and, to some, maddening four years of…
Atheism and agnosticism: The last closet
In 1996, John Updike released his 17th novel, In the Beauty of the Lilies, a story about a Presbyterian minister, Clarence Wilmot, who loses his faith, leaves the ministry and becomes an encyclopedia salesman. In a strange case of art…
Where’s the line between finding inspiration in another pastor’s sermon and plagiarizing it?
“Borrowing” someone else’s sermon is one of the top four ways pastors get fired from churches, according to Thom Rainer, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing arm and a noted interpreter of modern Christianity. Rainer made that statement…