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By Kathryn Post
(RNS) — ‘The biggest lesson I had to learn is that God’s lack of an answer to my prayers to change me was an answer, because there was…
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A Hole in Our Souls
By Morf Morford
I’ve been reading pieces of Indigenous religious thought and history lately. Something that has come from two very different cultures—one African and one Native South American — is the idea…
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Barbara Brown Taylor Has Holy Envy — and It’s Changed Her Christian Life
By Jana Riess
I’ve been a fan of every Barbara Brown Taylor book I’ve ever read, so it’s not surprising that I loved the newest, out Tuesday (March 12): Holy Envy: Finding God…
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To Battle the Hate That Invaded Two New Zealand Mosques, Start in the Schoolroom
It wasn’t until I dropped my daughter off at preschool this morning that I pulled out my phone and saw the horrific news about last night’s shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand. And…
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American Crap
A few years ago, I decided to do some research on my genealogy. I decided I would trace back as far as I could as many branches of my family…
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Seeing Life in Full Color
Chances are that today you’re going to spot someone who doesn’t look a whole lot like you, but someone who is just as human and just as divinely stamped as…
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Fasting from Food, Feeding on the Bible During Lent
By Thomas Reese
Via RNS — “What are you giving up for Lent?” is a question Catholics direct at each other this time of year. “Giving up” usually applies to food, in keeping…
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Are Red Letter Christians Politically Biased?
By Tony Campolo
Red Letter Christians claim to be nonpartisan, and yet, if you pay attention to what we say and write, it may appear that we are biased against the Republican Party.…
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4 Things to Know About Ash Wednesday
For Christians, the death and resurrection of Jesus is a pivotal event commemorated each year during a season of preparation called Lent and a season of celebration called Easter. The…
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What Is Holy?
By Morf Morford
Jews insist that the name of God is holy – too holy to be written or spoken. Muslims are convinced that any depiction of God or anything created in God’s…
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The Truth About LGBTQ Christians
By Karen Keen
When I saw the search terms someone recently used to find my website, I couldn’t help but smile sympathetically. They had typed “karen r. keen, is she a real Christian?”…
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Grieving, But Not Leaving, the United Methodist Church
A week ago, I loved the United Methodist Church. I still do, but this week I wish I had a fake wig and mustache to camouflage the embarrassment. Large institutions…
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How Christian Theology Lost Its Way
Via RNS — Miroslav Volf, founder of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, is a distinguished theologian with more than a dozen books to his credit. His colleague Matthew Croasman, director of…
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Grieving Exclusion: A Liturgy of Lament
Yesterday, the Special Session of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church voted to reinforce restrictions on conferences who choose to go against the denomination’s Book of Discipline by…
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The Right to Life in Creation
EDITOR’S NOTE: In Juliana v U.S., young people have sued the federal government for violating the public trust and infringing upon their right to life by ignoring climate science for…
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In Fight over Protestant-Only Foster Agency, Lawsuit Asks: Who Is a Christian?
Growing up in the South, Aimee Maddonna was aware of its jaundiced views of Catholics. But even she was shocked by the persistence of Catholic bias when she applied four…
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Claiming to Follow God’s Guidance in Politics
The most persistent question arising from our current schizophrenic ethos among American Christians is this: From one side, “How on earth could 81% of self-professed evangelical Christians vote for and…
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United Methodists Should Acknowledge Reality That They Are No Longer United
By Jacob Lupfer
“Lord of the church, we are united in Thee, in Thy church, and now in The United Methodist Church.” With those words, spoken April 23, 1968, at the constituting General…
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Do Black People Have Souls?
By Morf Morford
If you study religious history, even a little, you discover that virtually every religion, in almost every era, and almost every corner of the world asks a variant of that…
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Eleanor Roosevelt Could Have Been A Red Letter Christian
By Tony Campolo
Eleanor Roosevelt could have, and maybe would have, signed up as a Red Letter Christian. As bombs were destroying downtown London, Mrs. Roosevelt was publishing a short book entitled, The…
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Don’t Romanticize Suffering Following the Aurora Mass Shooting
Saturday night, the day after the shooting at a factory that killed five people, I was asked to offer the closing prayer at a church vigil in North Aurora and…
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Arms Open Wide
Growing up in the South as a queer person is very unique. You are constantly bombarded with words of hate, either from local church communities or strangers who feel they…
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What My ‘Brown’ Children are Teaching Me During Black History Month
By Erin Lane
We had known each other exactly three days before I had to reckon with what Black History Month had to do with my “brown” children. Three Mexican-American foster girls had…
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A Year After Parkland, We Are All Numb
Via RNS – It was all supposed to have changed, wasn’t it? A year ago, in the wake of the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland,…
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Where Does Injustice Begin?
Standing in a slum in Bihar, India, staring into the face of extreme poverty, one word came to mind, “Injustice.” Someone, somewhere, had let these people down. I then thought…
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The National Shame of Immigrant Detention Centers
On any given day, there are nearly 40,000 immigrants detained in U.S. custody. Many of these detention centers are run by for-profit corporations that have limited oversight, yet receive substantial…
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To Baptist Clergy Sex Abuse Survivors: 10 Tips from the Trenches
As the media spotlight focuses its glare on the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Southern Baptist Convention, we who have been dealing with abuse issues for years already see familiar patterns…
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Stepping into the Light: Christians & Mental Illness
By Lily Dunn
Two years ago I was diagnosed with Type II Bipolar Disorder. At first, I tried to argue my psychiatrist out of it. That conversation went something like this: Dr: You’ve…
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The Evolution of Sin
Julia Scheeres always knew she was a sinner. Raised in Indiana by fundamentalist evangelical parents, Scheeres grew under a moral code defined by obligation and fear. “God,” she wrote recently,…
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The Dangers of (Poverty) Porn
By Ryan Kuja
EDITOR’S NOTE: This excerpt is from Ryan Kuja’s book From the Inside Out: Reimagining Mission, Recreating the World (Cascade Books, 2018). All rights reserved. Used with permission. Not long ago I…
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How American Exceptionalism & White Supremacy Reveal the REAL State of Our Union
It was obviously deeply divided. Half the time the Democrats did not know when to stand, while the Republican side looked like a Jack-in-the-Box on energy drinks. What they did…
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Women’s Voices — Rather than Empty Slogans — Must Drive Abortion Debates
The first time someone called me a “baby killer,” I was 18 and shocked by the invective. I’d not yet developed a stance on abortion, one way or another, and…
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Growing in the Dark
I remember growing my first cress from seeds. Just keep them watered and close to light, I was told. They eventually sprouted. I felt so successful! But that was nothing…
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The Science of Sabbath: How People Are Rediscovering Rest — and Claiming Its Benefits
Tiffany Shlain built her career by being online almost all the time. She founded the Webby Awards, which honor the best of the Web each year. She also runs a…
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Black History Month for A White Guy
I am a white guy who gets excited about Black History Month. Why? Do Black people need my help? No. They are doing fine without me. They speak for themselves…
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The Great American Heresy
America is a Christian nation, so we are told. Our story begins with the pilgrims fleeing religious persecution in England. They braved the Atlantic Ocean and founded Plymouth Colony after…
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How to Talk More About Sin
By Eric Minton
In my day job, I work as a therapist in a high school brimming over with talented, resourceful and intelligent adolescents. Yes, some of them are in poverty. Yes, some…
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Bible Face Off: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez v. Sarah Huckabee Sanders
By Mark Silk
This week the Notorious AOC cited Scripture for her purpose. Which was to slap down Sarah Huckabee Sanders for criticizing her views on climate change. OMG. In case you missed…
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How Many, Lord?
It seems these headlines are becoming a regular occurrence. Since the case involving Michael Brown — a young black man who was killed by the police in Ferguson — national…
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Parenting As Activism
My greatest contribution was probably the picture of me, leaning over my little child to speak into the microphone, with the legislator who had proposed the bill scowling off to…
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For the Sake of the World
I’ve been a worship leader and pastor for the last 20 years. And while I’ve been encouraged to speak out about many different topics, one thing has been very clearly…
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Is It Our Homes or Hearts That Need Tidying Up?
I have to admit I haven’t read or watched anything about tidying up my house lately and from the state of my social media feeds lately, I think I might…
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Truth in the Mirror: White America’s First Encounter with Indians
When I first saw the so called “confrontation” between the group of Native Americans and many young Red-caped Christians at the national mall, I was bewildered as to why that…
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The Complete Life — According to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Whenever I read the words of Dr. King, I am struck by how clearly he understood the world’s problems. I also stand in awe of his belief in the power…
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The Critical Inaction of White Moderates
By Preston Byrd
One of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s most well-known works is his penned Letter from A Birmingham Jail. His mastery of classical thought and application to the world is…
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Catholic School Apologizes After Clip Emerges of Students Mocking Native Americans
Via RNS — A Catholic high school in Kentucky is apologizing after videos surfaced of students dressed in the school’s garb confronting and mocking a group of Native Americans —…
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Beyond Church In-Fighting
“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of…
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Jewish Women Divided over Women’s March Face Difficult Choices
Shana Becker has much in common with the women who are expected to crowd the National Mall in Washington for the third annual Women’s March. A lawyer, an activist and…
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Why God Can’t Take Away Suffering
By Michael Rans
In his book, God Can’t: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils, Thomas Jay Oord delves into the heart of one of the most…
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The 10 Most Dangerous Places to Be a Christian
By Open Doors
The Christian persecution we read about in scripture is not a thing of the past. It still exists. And today, in the 21st century, we are living in a time…
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Are Churches Willing to Love Their Young People More Than Their Politics?
Change is part of the journey into young adulthood, the years in which Americans are most likely to move, attend college and change jobs. For the past 12 years, LifeWay…
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On Taking Up Space
By Lily Dunn
A few weeks ago, a friend mentioned offhand that he was headed to the gym. He jokingly added that his mantra is, “Must get bigger.” I laughed and told him…
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We Are Not All There Is
We went to see the volcanoes, but all the parking lots, the chain of craters, and hiking trails were blocked off. We saw the steam vents, because they are on…
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Do This — All of This
EDITOR’S NOTE: This excerpt is from Steve Daugherty’s book Experiments in Honesty: Meditations on Love, Fear and the Honest to God Naked Truth (Worthy Publishing, 2018). All rights reserved. Used…
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Jewish Lending Groups Step in to Help Their Furloughed Kin
Jewish groups are pitching in to help the estimated 50,000 Jewish furloughed federal workers across the country who will lose their paychecks if the government shutdown continues until Friday (Jan.…
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The Power & Privilege of the Pulpit
By Molly Smerko
I recently returned from a four-day preaching festival of young preachers from all over the country. Over those four days, I had the privilege of hearing sermons from many diverse…
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How to Write for Red Letter Christians
By RLC Editor
Interested in writing for Red Letter Christians? We’d be delighted to consider your work! Take a look at the content on our site to familiarize yourself with our voice and…
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Red Letter Christians Gear up for UK Launch
By Rosie Dawson
The evangelical movement known as Red Letter Christians, still a relatively little-known, left-leaning counter to the Christian right in the United States, is breaking new ground at the invitation of…
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Pope to Church: Bring Abusers to Justice
By Thomas Reese
Shortly before Christmas, Pope Francis declared in response to the sexual abuse crisis that “the church will spare no effort to do all that is necessary to bring to justice…
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What’s Coming for Religion in 2019? Here’s What the Experts Predict
By Aysha Khan
Via RNS — 2018 saw wave after wave of new revelations about the extent of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis. It saw deadly hate crimes, the explosion of state-sponsored…
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2018 in Review: A Year of Reckoning for Powerful Religious Figures
By Bob Smietana
A year ago Bill Hybels was the well-respected pastor of one of the most influential megachurches in the nation. Theodore McCarrick was a prince of the Catholic Church, and Michael…
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From the Manger to the Cross: Mourning the Slaughter of the Holy Innocents
In December, Christians delight in lifting from the gospels the most iconic moments of the Christmas story: the angelic visits, shepherds flooded in glory light, Mary and Joseph silhouetted beside…
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What Have We Been Waiting For?
By Bill Cayley
Was Christmas all that you hoped for? Did you get all the presents you wanted? Did you get to sing all your favorite carols? Did you get to feast, without…
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Yes, Donald Trump, There Is A Santa Claus
Call him the Grinch in Chief. Or, the Killjoy of the Free World. In a Christmas Eve call, Trump asked a 7-year-old named Collman Lloyd whether the child still believes in Santa…
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Advent 4: Incarnating God’s Strength
By Cory Driver
Editor’s Note: A reflection for the fourth Sunday of Advent, according to the lectionary. Many post-Enlightenment biblical scholars have been embarrassed by the anthropomorphization of God in the Bible. They reasoned…
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Embrace the Work of Christmas
Across the globe, from small communities in southern India to the splendor of the Vatican in Rome to homes across Oregon, people will gather Christmas Day to celebrate the birth…
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In the Name of the Christ Child Refugee
In the “refugee” camp just outside of Tijuana, it is beginning to rain. For the hundreds of women and children inside the building, the rain is a minor annoyance. For…
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Converting the Missionaries Among Us: Lessons from Jesus in Luke 4
“Certainly there were many needy widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the heavens were closed for three and a half years, and a severe famine devastated the land. Yet Elijah…
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What Keeps Us Safe?
I’m sitting here at my neighborhood coffee shop, thousands of miles away from all the ostensibly dangerous Central American migrants and their families threatening to cross the southern border, bringing…
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Advent 3: Turning Aside from Fear & Abusive Systems
By Cory Driver
Editor’s Note: A reflection for the third Sunday of Advent, according to the lectionary. How often does it happen that we are afraid to get out of a bad system or…
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Holiday Grief: An Unwelcome Guest Deserving of Radical Hospitality
We humans are incredibly vulnerable. We are all susceptible to tragedy and loss and the grief that follows. The holidays can be a time of intensified grief for many of…
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Your Middle Class Church Is Shrinking Because the American Middle Class Is Shrinking
By Eric Minton
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Let me begin by saying that nothing you’re going to read in this piece is terribly radical. However, it will feel radical for almost all of us reading…
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Ending the Year #MeToo Went to Church, Wheaton Summit to Discuss Evangelical Response
For years, Nancy Beach had no idea there were women with stories similar to hers. Beach, the first woman to serve as a teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, said…
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Love Knows No Borders: At Least 30 Faith Leaders Arrested in Border Protest
By Jack Jenkins
After a tense standoff with officials at the U.S.-Mexico border on Monday (Dec. 10), at least 30 American clergy were taken into custody over the objections of demonstrators, who had…
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Advent 2: Is This Good News?
By Cory Driver
Editor’s Note: A reflection for the second Sunday of Advent, according to the lectionary. John the Baptizer would have been a stumbling block for me. Initially, I feel attracted to…
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The Opposite of Christianity
By Morf Morford
Most people might think that atheism is the opposite of Christianity. It isn’t. Atheism is the opposite of theism — the belief in a divine being, or many of them,…
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Good News in a Difficult World
By Tony Campolo
In the midst of all the discouraging news that come our way from print and online media, I have some good news to report. In the words of the early…
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It’s Time for a Grand Compromise on Religious Freedom and Contraceptives
By Thomas Reese
Those who felt that the Obama administration was heavy-handed in its promotion of reproductive rights are pleased with the Trump administration’s support of religious freedom in these areas. Not only…
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Missions & the Mythology of Western Christian Supremacy
By Ryan Kuja
The Washington Post piece by missiologist Ed Stetzer presents John Chau as an extremely well prepared missionary who did nearly everything right in his quest to convert the Sentinelese to…
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Getting Through A Christmas of Grief
By Jana Riess
“Christmas can be a time of joy but also of tears, memory and prayer. Celebration does not always come easily.” So describes Wounded in Spirit: Advent Art and Meditations, a gorgeous…
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ICE’s War on Christmas
The day after Thanksgiving, while many families were still enjoying their holiday together, Samuel Oliver-Bruno went with his wife, son, and fellow church members to an appointment at the U.S.…
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Tear Gassing Children is Not Christian
As Americans finished up Thanksgiving celebrations, immigrant children fleeing violence in their home countries were tear gassed at the border. President Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and racist, fear-mongering rhetoric are to…
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Missions: Is It Love or Colonization?
John Allen Chau’s life could be summed up in two sentences, according to his family. He loved God. And he had “nothing but love for the Sentinelese people.” Chau, a…
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After Arrest of Protected Immigrant, Sanctuary Church Members Cry out for Justice
Two days after government agents had forcibly detained Samuel Oliver-Bruno, an undocumented immigrant who had taken sanctuary at the CityWell Church, congregants stood up one after another at a Sunday…
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When Jesus Doesn’t Meet Our Expectations
As the saying goes, expectations are premeditated resentments. Yet expectations accumulate like stains on a white couch, appearing without us knowing when or from where they originated. As a teenager,…
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After Synagogue Shooting, Fresh Thoughts on Giving Thanks
David Feldstein knew seven of the 11 people killed in the synagogue. For Augie Siriano, they all were friends. Rabbi Jeffrey Myers was leading Shabbat services when the gunshots rang out.…
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What Does Having A Meal Mean for Our Souls?
By Andrew Greer
My childhood was rather idyllic, at least as my memory serves me. My father’s profession was in the marriage and family counseling field, and my mother’s work was in music. My…
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To Build Up or To Tear Down?
By Bill Cayley
Many who live in the U.S. feel proud to be part of a “developed” country, and it is not unusual to hear “third world” countries used disparagingly as examples of…
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#RubyWooPilgrimage18: White-Washed Walls and Halls
EDITOR’S NOTE: A reflection on the 2018 Ruby Woo Pilgrimage, a sacred journey through the intersectional story of the struggle of women for equality in the U.S. We sat in…
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Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution
EDITOR’S NOTE: A word from RLC co-founder Shane Claiborne as the #DallasRevival kicks off (November 16-17, 2018). Christianity in America is in a funk. The latest evidence of that is…
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#DALLASREVIVAL LIVESTREAM
By RLC Editor
EDITOR’S NOTE: The livestream has now ended. To view recorded videos, click on the “event posts” button in the video menu above. Scroll down to view the “Red Letter Revival Saturday…
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Can America Be Great Again?
By Tony Campolo
After surveying America, the brilliant French journalist, Alexis de Tocqueville declared: “America is great because America is good; and if America ever ceases to be good, it will cease to…
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Finding Lutheran Theology in ‘The Good Place’
By Ross Murray
Theology is not often portrayed in popular culture. Morality may appear, often in the form of a good vs. evil battle (which is often more of a physical battle than…
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This is the Year of the Faithful Widow in Politics
In a rebuke of President Trump and the Republican party’s racism, attacks on health care, the separation immigrant children from their parents, and failure to confront sexual abuse, women turned…
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As Evangelicals Win with Trump, Little ‘Good News’ Is Left in the Religious Right
By Jacob Lupfer
The story of the 2018 midterms for me came not on Election Day but at a Republican campaign rally in Missouri Monday night (Nov. 5), when President Trump’s speech was…
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Vote for Life & Love
About 20 years ago, some pranksters in Philadelphia set up an election-day voting station… only they used porta-potties instead of voting booths. There are elections when you feel like you…
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Trump’s Nativism Harks Back to the Antebellum Slavery Struggle
By Mark Silk
The Wall got Donald Trump elected in 2016, so we shouldn’t be surprised that he has focused on immigration in the final days before the midterms. It serves as a useful reminder…
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When the Bible Gets in the Way of Following Jesus
By Jon Huckins
As the migrant caravan moves through Central America and Mexico toward our border, my heart is heavy and saddened as I watch so many compassionate people talk about this group…
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Christians Can’t Allow the Bible Belt to Be the ‘Death Belt’
I’ll never forget the first time I visited Tennessee’s death row. On my way to visit the men in Unit 2 at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, I…
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‘Who We Vote for Matters’: A Message from Nuns on the Bus
As I stood alongside members of Congress, economic experts, and faith leaders, it was a mom and her nine-year-old daughter in matching t-shirts who stole the show and our hearts.…
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Stand in the Name of Love
It is times such as these when the twin specters of hate and violence rise once again to remind us that they can still wound us. They can still reach…