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You never know the day your life will change—or the person who will change it. For me, her name was Om Hassan. I was 23, an American soldier…
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Seeing Jesus in the Migrants at the Border
By Alan CrossVia RNS — The devastating picture of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, lying face down in the muddy waters of the Rio Grande jolted the nation awake…
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Thou Shalt Not Compare Historical Horrors?
Via RNS — Yesterday (June 24), the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum condemned the comparison of concentration camps to illegal immigrant detention centers. Here is the statement: The United States Holocaust Memorial…
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What Will It Take to Study War No More?
By Art LaffinEach Monday morning, members and friends of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker (DDCW) hold a peace vigil outside the Pentagon’s southeast entrance where hundreds of civilians and military personnel stream…
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What Should Churches Do with Questioners?
By Jen ZamzowI know what it is like to question. After growing up in the evangelical church, I did a Ph.D. in philosophy in a department that was almost all atheists. I…
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Faith Gone Wrong
Addiction is a kind of faith gone wrong. Across the country and the world, we see its effects at work. Drug overdoses in the United States have doubled every nine…
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How Wellness Culture Is About More Than Beauty
Via RNS — Last week, novelist Jessica Knoll wrote a scorching op-ed in the New York Times devoted to taking down the wellness industry. Reflecting on a lifetime of “counting macros, replacing…
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Boisterous Faith Leaders and a Silent Pete Buttigieg Rally Against Trump at White House
By Jack JenkinsVia RNS — A diverse band of faith leaders and at least one presidential candidate descended on a park outside the White House on Wednesday (June 12), gathering to decry what…
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As Opioid Epidemic Spreads, a NC Church Opens Its Doors to a Syringe Exchange
Via RNS — The Rev. Sarah Howell-Miller, a United Methodist minister, once opposed needle exchange programs for opioid addicts — a stance shared by legislators in some three dozen states. The…
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Bible-Waving in the Face of Injustice
By Alex AwadIt is deplorable and somewhat surprising to watch Danny Danon, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, wave a Bible at a session of the Security Council to defend his country’s…
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Taking Biblical Economic Justice Seriously
By Don GoldenCNN recently reported that Donald Trump made $434 million in 2018. How is that so many working-class evangelicals are so willing to look past income inequality? Are evangelicals only Bible…
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The America Where I Want to Live
The air dripped this week in the Midwest. Finally summer, the first week of June, and I remembered how heavy it becomes an hour before a storm, the sky growing…
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#MoralWitnessWednesday: A Call to Prayer and Prophetic Action
This past Sunday (June 2nd), Franklin Graham and fellow Christian nationalists organized a “special day of prayer” for the president. Though Trump spent the morning on his golf course in…
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While It Was Still Dark: A Requiem for Rachel Held Evans
EDITOR’S NOTE: After a brief illness, beloved Christian author and theologian Rachel Held Evans passed away on May 4, 2019, at the age of 37. In the midst of deep…
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On Trump, Forgiveness, and Theocracy
By Bill CayleyThere are (sadly) so many ways in which the current leadership of our country falls far, far short of exemplifying Christian leadership and Christian character — no matter what some…
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Can the Religious Right and Left Be More Than a Rubber Stamp for Their Parties’ Policies?
By Jacob LupferVia RNS — In the media and in our popular imagination, the religious right towers over our political landscape. So much so, in fact, that one could be forgiven for…
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Can We Remember Truthfully on Memorial Day?
Some conversations can haunt you long after they have taken place. I had one decades ago with a woman whose son was on the battlefield during World War II. Fortunately,…
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What Red Letter Christians Can Do When Political Talk Becomes Difficult
By Tony CampoloPerhaps the most problematic result of the vitriol that has infected political discourse via the mass media is that people have tended to shy away from any discussion on political…
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Washing the Blood Off Our Hands
As Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee faced his first execution last week, he said that he was “upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and will not be intervening.” It sounds like an innocent…
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I Am Ashamed of the Anti-Abortion Gospel
By Don GoldenAlabama Gov. Kay Ivey recently signed America’s most draconian anti-abortion law. This latest in a series of red state efforts to overturn Roe v Wade makes abortion a Class A felony, threatening…
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A Prophet in Our Midst
I want to tell you a story about humility, and about purpose and prophecy, and about America. It begins in December 2014, though truthfully it started several months earlier, in…
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Could Draconian Abortion Bans Reverse Roe — and Unite Christians in Opposition?
Via RNS — Several states have passed restrictive abortion bills this legislative session, with Alabama earlier this week joining Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky and Ohio in passing so-called “fetal heartbeat bills”…
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People of Faith Must Help Disrupt the School-to-Prison-Pipeline
By Emily JonesWhen it comes to the school-to-prison pipeline, groups such as Advancement Project’s National Office, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Dignity in Schools campaign, Children’s Defense Fund, the Alliance for Education…
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For Houses of Worship, Interfaith Collaboration Is the Future of Security
By Aysha KhanVia RNS — Last month, on the last day of Passover, a man armed with an AR-15-style rifle stormed into the Chabad of Poway synagogue in suburban San Diego and…
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Let Caster Semenya Be Who God Created Her to Be: Fast and Strong
Even now, more than 30 years later, I remember my shame. I was running a 10K co-ed road race, and found myself being funneled toward the men’s finish line as…
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Please Care
By Morf MorfordI don’t get to Seattle often, but when I do, I usually pass through a certain busy intersection. The past few times, months apart, I noticed an older Black man…
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Will Grace Prevail as Tennessee Execution Looms?
It’s the first time I’ve counted down the days to a friend’s execution. Unless there is a miracle from God or compassion from the state’s governor, Tennessee will kill Don Johnson…
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How Jean Vanier Broke My Heart and Saved My Life
Via RNS — Thirteen years ago this week, I met a man — a living saint, many insisted — who broke my heart and forever changed my life. Jean Vanier, the…
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Telling the Truth About Ourselves
One Coin Found was not written for me, but I needed to read it anyway. Although I also grew up in one of those relatively liberal Protestant denominations, spent some…
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Remembering A Woman of Valor: 4 Gifts Rachel Held Evans Gave Us
When the heartbreaking news came this weekend that Rachel Held Evans had passed away after enduring a medical coma for three weeks, it quickly became clear just how many people she had…
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Trumping the National Day of Prayer
I’m not a fan of the National Day of Prayer. Not that I oppose prayer, but the day is an occasion to put the nation in a sacred spotlight, linking…
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The Answer Isn’t Less Religion — It’s Better Religion
By Jon HuckinsThe recent attack on the Jewish community here in our greater San Diego area has been deeply disorienting. Things always feel different when they get close. The Jewish community is…
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It Is Time to Publicly Protest Anti-Semitism
There is a very popular song that Jews sing at the Passover seder. It recounts the wonderful things that have happened in our history, all of them acts of God.…
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Cowboys and Indians: Dismantling the Western, Settler-Colonial Worldview (PART IV)
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article on “Shifting Worldviews and Indigenous Empowerment” is the last in a 4-part series to deconstruct the Western, settler-colonial worldview and to #ResurrectEloheh. Worldviews are not immutable,…
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To Sri Lankan Christians, and All Christian Friends: ‘May Christ Rise for You’
Two of my closest friends are Episcopal priests. I know. This sounds like the beginning of a joke. “Two priests and a rabbi walk into a bar…” Except it is…
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Cowboys and Indians: Dismantling the Western, Settler-Colonial Worldview (PART III)
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article on “Embedded Fallacies in the Western Worldview” is the third in a 4-part series to deconstruct the Western, settler-colonial worldview and to #ResurrectEloheh. Dualism: Dualism is…
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Clay Jars: A Letter to My Sisters in Ministry
In these days after Easter, Jesus has risen, and I am thinking especially of my sister colleagues in ministry and in work of all sorts for the gospel across America…
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Cowboys and Indians: Dismantling the Western, Settler-Colonial Worldview (PART II)
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article on “Worldview Distinctions” is the second in a 4-part series to deconstruct the Western, settler-colonial worldview and to #ResurrectEloheh. There are glaring differences between the worldviews…
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Cowboys and Indians: Dismantling the Western, Settler-Colonial Worldview (PART I)
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article on “The American Way” is the first in a 4-part series to deconstruct the Western, settler-colonial worldview and to #ResurrectEloheh. The American, Western way of thinking…
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How Making Friends with Indigenous People Changed My Life
By Joshua GraceI’m a Polish-American settler. I didn’t choose the conditions of my birth or my original family. However, I do choose to actively undermine the systems and lies beneath those conditions…
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Black Women Cracking ‘Stained-Glass Ceilings’ with Jesus’ 7 Last Words
Days before Good Friday, the Rev. Stacey Hamilton continued to contemplate what she would preach about some of the last words of Jesus: “Truly I tell you, today you will…
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Why We Want to Skip Holy Week
I have a suspicion about why so few of us go to church between Palm Sunday and Easter. It is not just that weeknight services are tricky in our schedules.…
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Unholy Week
Bright orange flames gave way to billowing clouds of sooty gray smoke, rising high in the sky and nearly covering the setting sun in gay Paris; the arrondissements and boulevards…
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Christian Nationalism: The Real American Idol
By Daniel HawkAt 1:00 a.m. on May 1, 2011, twenty-three members of Navy Seal Team Six descended from two MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters into a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Their objective was…
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Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris Ravaged by Fire
Via RNS — A massive fire engulfed the 850-year-old Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of Paris Monday evening (April 15), destroying the entire wooden frame of one of Christianity’s…
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The Religions in ‘Game of Thrones’
By Jana RiessWarning: This post contains spoilers through the end of Season 7. Also, winter is coming. But you probably knew that. There’s a scene in Season 2 of Game of Thrones in which a…
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Rejoicing in the Midst of Sorrow
By Kate BowlerIf you attend a church that observes the liturgical calendar, this past weekend you may have noticed the sanctuary decorated with flowers, clergy clad in pink vestments, and the organist…
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Why White Guys Think They’re Suffering
By Sam AltisWhen I think about the changing cultural and religious landscape, I often visualize a large theater where we collectively go for connection, entertainment, and a sense of purpose. On the…
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Lent Is A Season of Stubborn Hope
By Kate BowlerVia RNS — We feel our smallness when we consider the universe, unutterably vast, dark and scattered. Whole swaths of space are empty, while elsewhere galaxies drift through the void…
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All Americans Owe It to Our Country to See What’s Happening at the Border
Just across the U.S. border in South Texas, a few steps into Mexico, a young couple from Nicaragua holds their 2-year-old son, who is, and will forever be, unable to…
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Incarnate Weirdness (Or How NOT to Give up Social Media)
By Eric MintonSo I (mostly) stopped using Facebook for Lent. After I made this decision, it took everything inside of me to not immediately post on Facebook about how I wasn’t using…
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JOB ANNOUNCEMENT: Executive Assistant to Shane Claiborne
By Don GoldenExecutive Assistant to Shane Claiborne
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How Fan Fiction Gave Millennials Power over Their Spirituality
Masters voice I can heard (sic) loud and clear. I know when I do wrong, I know when he is pleased. The way I see things is that we tend…
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American Christianity vs. Faithful Christianity
By Chris EblingI was flipping through my Facebook feed the other day when I happened upon Mary Colbert, a self-proclaimed Christian activist speaking on Jim Bakker’s TV show. In the clip, she…
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A Hole in Our Souls
By Morf MorfordI’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 RiessI’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 ReeseVia 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 CampoloRed 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 MorfordJews 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 KeenWhen 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 MorfordIf 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 CampoloEleanor 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 LaneWe 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 DunnTwo 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 KujaEDITOR’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 MintonIn 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 SilkThis 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 ByrdOne 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…