Science can explain why Hurricane Florence is threatening my home. But it can’t interpret it. On Ash Wednesday 1962, the dead didn’t just rise again. They floated. The Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 was one of the worst storms to hit the Eastern seaboard in modern memory. One of the places hardest hit was Chincoteague …
Melani McAlister’s new history aims to capture what the familiar political story leaves out. Since the 1980s, when the Religious Right helped elevate California governor Ronald Reagan to the presidency, outside observers have typically understood American evangelicalism through the lens of American politics. Melani McAlister, a professor of American studies at George Washington University, wants …
Ten years after his suicide, I marvel at his genius but mourn the crushing burdens he carried. I miss David Foster Wallace. That may seem a strange thing to say since I never met him. When he died—ten years ago to the day, by suicide—I had barely heard of him. But at different times, and …
Christians are talking past each other once again. What’s going on? Last week, John MacArthur and a dozen other Christian leaders launched a website presenting The Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel. In the statement, the signatories claim that the social justice movement endangers Christians with “an onslaught of dangerous and false teachings that …
Imitating Christ is not just an individual concern but a corporate affair. “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you,” says Paul to the young church in Corinth. “And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning … ? Your boasting is not good,” he continues. “Don’t you know that …
There are more than biological principles inside cells. When I lecture, I can’t help but feel like I’m a pastor giving a sermon. I stand behind a podium, lecture notes and book at hand, with PowerPoint slides behind me and a congregation of students in front of me. While I don’t have a wireless microphone, …
A reporter’s inside look at the team’s Christian culture repeats some characteristic flaws of evangelical writing on sports. The annals of football are filled with “God squads,” teams with widely publicized reputations for Christian faith. As far back as the 1890s, Yale football enthusiasts attributed the team’s success to the number of “praying men” on …
How a gay California lawmaker and the former head of the National Association of Evangelicals found common ground on a controversial piece of legislation. This spring, California assemblyman Evan Low introduced legislation that would have designated paid “conversion therapy” services as a fraudulent business practice. Until last week, Low’s measure seemed set to pass. It …
A new “spiritual biography” of the author of A Wrinkle in Time celebrates her refusal to be pigeonholed. If we are willing to live by Scripture, we must be willing to live by paradox and contradiction and surprise.” Madeleine L’Engle said it, and she certainly lived by it. Sarah Arthur takes this principle to heart …
Why Christian activity should start with non-activity. In his 1983 Templeton Prize address, Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “If I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too, I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten …