I was recently offered a job as the director of a children’s ministry at a local church.  An entire wing of the over 40,000 sq. ft. building would be for my use, a wing whose walls had been painted by another church group sometime in the 70s.  One room had a mural of Adam and Eve, the latter a blonde...

Watching the Superbowl in a crowd of fifty people in a private house is a strange experience, as the only thing that can cut through the din of joviality and smack talk is a shrill, “Shhh, the commercials are on.”  I usually pay attention to neither the game nor the commercials, but I sat, pen poised...

“Where is Christ for you right now?”  This question was posed at the 11pm Christmas Eve service at my parents’ church, after which we were encouraged to take a few moments of silence to reflect. Truth be told, Christ wasn’t forefront for me this season.  In fact, the only time I really thought...

I suppose I’m too young to be sentimental about the good ol’ days, but I remember when each hefty local paper had a significant religion section. Now, as subscriptions wane and advertisers pull out, newspapers are forced to scale back their paper’s coverage, which, for most, starts with nixing...

This past week, the American Psychological Association declared their opposition to the theory that homosexual people can be “fixed” by reparative therapy like that used in Exodus and other ex-gay ministries. The definitive statements came from the board’s examination of dozens of case studies...

A few weeks ago, I traveled home to Michigan and decided I would attend my parents’ church. Back when I was an adolescent in this same denomination, all of my friends decided to make a public “Profession of Faith,” in which they all took a 6-week course on our church’s tradition,...

Last month, John Pattison and Larry Shallenberger brought the “American Patriot’s Bible” controversy to light in this post and this post, respectively. There was much dialogue around the issue on whether we should consider this publication offensive as Christians and, if so, what our response...

I sometimes joke that the only two things that I am an evangelist for are Jesus and Gmail. Each, to different degrees, has shaped my life for the better, and yes, I realize how sacrilegious that sounds. Even so, I am much more likely to verbally evangelize for Gmail than I am for Jesus, more likely...

The word cloud above is a tribute to James Dobson, made from the text of one of his articles on homosexuality. Props to wordle.net, where you can paste in text from anywhere and it makes the words big or small depending on their frequency. As you may know, Dr. Dobson has stepped down from his executive...

I didn’t set out to pray for Ted Haggard. In fact, he wouldn’t have made my top 1,000 concerns. But a couple Sundays ago at church, we had a prayer station where we could pick newspaper clippings out of a bowl, promising that we would pray for whatever situation or person we picked. A friend...