“Who told you that you were naked?” God asked Adam and Eve in the Garden. It’s one of the first questions recorded in the Bible. From the very beginning, Evil has taught us that our bodies are bad. We’ve been…
Why we must not look away in the current crisis
It was a sermon illustration I will never forget. Our pastor told the story of Father Michael Renninger, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Richmond, Va. While a college student on his way home one weekend, Renninger stopped to…
Noah’s lawsuit: Is God trying to say something?
Noah’s ark is not a children’s story, a funny story or even a story concerned with history. This story is true even if it never happened. If you get past the strangeness, it sounds like recent events.
Apocalypse soon? Faith communities and preparing for the environmental end times
The creeping things got here first, Genesis tells us. Human beings came later. That was then; this is now: it appears that millennia later humanity is working diligently to reverse creation and be alone again.
Ashes to ashes: Remembering where we came from
On the evening of January 18, 2005, the First Baptist Church of Jamaica Plain, Mass., burned to the ground. The building was one of the oldest in town, with a beautiful Hook organ, hand-carved wooden pews, and a steeple tall…
Franklin Graham, Pope Francis promote veganism — but for very different reasons
For some Christians, going vegan may be a sudden thing after attending a church talk about factory farming and animal cruelty. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, they are struck with a life-changing conviction — this one to give up…
ESV gets final revision as ‘unchanged’ word of God, publisher says
The third most popular translation of the Bible has just become, officially, the unchanging word of God. The latest edition of the English Standard Version, or ESV, included a 52-word revision followed by a board vote declaring the text will…
Come ye sinners
on arks and alienation: or why building a 70 million dollar boat in the middle of Kentucky still seems like a bad idea.
These days it doesn’t take much to leave me feeling dismayed and embarrassed by the public image of the faith to which I’ve tethered my hopes, fears, dreams, and abilities to pay my mortgage. Which, is why I’m ever so…