How a memorial could help lead America—and Christians—to repentance from a dark history. In 1902 a black man named Alonzo Tucker was lynched from a bridge in the coastal town of Coos Bay, Oregon, a few hours south of my home. It is the only lynching on record in the state, and the limited known …
Why addiction ministry can include fellowship, the gospel and Narcan. The man in front of me is almost dead. His lips are blue. He isn’t breathing. His eyes are half open and still. His arms fall limply off the stretcher, and he doesn’t flinch as needles are threaded into his veins and his clothes are …
Measuring meekness can help the church as long as we remember the only One who had something to brag about. We all know we shouldn’t text as we drive. Or more precisely, we all know other people shouldn’t text as they drive. As for me, I’m exceptionally cautious, just sending off a few words to …
God’s people can’t unite against the Enemy when half of them are on the sidelines. From her several decades of experience in women’s ministries and in seminary classrooms, Alice Mathews has gained an appreciation for the gifts godly women offer the church. In Gender Roles and the People of God: Rethinking What We Were Taught …
No earthly leader gets the ‘authority to do whatever.’ Much of the world has responded with “fire and fury” to President Donald Trump’s message to North Korea that continued threats will “be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen”—an unmistakable allusion to using nuclear weapons. Given the gravity of this remark, …
Facebook and others have started to imitate, but can’t replace, church community. From the late 1980s, many churches made the decision to run like businesses and now, in a surprising twist, businesses in 2017 are running like churches. At Facebook’s inaugural Communities Summit earlier this summer, CEO Mark Zuckerberg lauded the role churches historically played …
How the Bible’s little details can pack a big apologetic punch. Asked whether it is rational to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, many of us instinctively turn to what is known, in apologetics, as a minimal facts approach. We’ll note that virtually all scholars of any persuasion will agree with certain basic facts …
In the aftermath of tragedy, gratitude helps us grow. I can still remember with perfect clarity the moment I read the news about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. I was out for a walk with my young daughter. I felt physically sick to my stomach and immediately began weeping, thinking of all those families …
James K.A. Smith wants to focus on the creeds, not sexuality. But there’s more to it than that. Is affirming same-sex sexual relationships as righteous before God a heresy? Even if you believe it’s un-Biblical, are heresy and orthodoxy even the right categories for addressing the problem? Over the weekend, philosopher and Calvin College professor …
Only a vibrant inner life can sustain the activist’s soul. A little over a decade ago, no emblem of young Christians’ blooming justice activism flashed brighter than Invisible Children. It was born in 2004, shortly after Jason Russell and two other recent college graduates returned to the United States from Uganda with burning hearts and …