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A subversive approach to a subversive parable [From Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43] On the surface, the story reads quite clearly—maybe a little too clearly. If you’re a regular church attendee…
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Red Letter Christians on Campus: Do We Have a Responsibility to Shut our Siblings Up?
An Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Central Florida, Dr. Charles Negy, has struck a nerve by sending an email to his unanaesthetized “Cross-Cultural Psychology” students challenging the…
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A Change That’s Hard to Believe In
photo via Political Party Pooper No one wants to talk about compromise unless they know someone else is meeting them halfway, or three-quarters of the way, or how about I…
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Dreams of Our Own: Revalidating Traditional Mayan Lifestyles
cialis salemala-Farming-300×196.jpg” alt=”” width=”270″ height=”176″ />Mario Benedetti, the Uruguayan novelist and poet who best expressed the aspirations and dreams of the oppressed of Latin America, once said: “Publicity is a…
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Planning for Poverty: The SNAP Challenge
I’ve said before that privilege often is invisible until you don’t have it. So in that light, I’m doing a little experiment in a few days with our family, and…
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The Universe Across Town
By Morf Morford
Can you picture what we’ll be So limitless and free Desperately in need of some stranger’s hand In a…desperate land! “The End” by the Doors I know most of the…
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Of Hell, Heaven, Sikhs and Christian education for little kids
By Kay Campbell
What’s the goal of faith-based work: Getting people to believe something or offering help and healing regardless of beliefs? The recent experience of Elly Scott, a brilliant young writer in…
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I Will Pay 11 Cents — A Response to Papa John's
I’ll pay 11 cents, If you will provide health care for the people who work for you. I’ll pay 11 cents, To make sure a single mom does not have…
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Saved from Meritocracy
Americans pride ourselves on our system of meritocracy. We believe that if you work hard, you can achieve anything. We affirm that we got where we are because of our own skills…
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Can Porn be Used Responsibly?
By Kurt Willems
This term at a local trade school I have the honor of teaching college level speech and ethics. My ethics class, to be honest, can be a challenge at times.…
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Are the Culture Wars Real? A Case for Heresy
Growing up, I heard things at camp and in youth group about how “the world” thought and acted one way, and how “we” were not like that. In fact the…
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Evangelicals and Space Exploration: Do We Have Curiosity?
Source: WikiMedia “Holding the stars is the man that carries my scars.” –P.O.D., Tribal Warriors “Who but You could breathe and leave a trail of galaxies and dream of me?”…
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Fraudulent Freedom and the Needs of the Poor
To claim Jesus called people to voluntarily help the poor and needy is true. But to go beyond that assertion and claim Jesus wouldn’t support – and we shouldn’t support…
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Lamenting and Learning from Hiroshima
Today marks the day that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Here’s a really meaningful way to remember the day, by reading the words of George Zabelka, who was…
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Another Week. More Innocent People Die. Wash. Rinse. Repeat
Last weekend I wrote in Red Letter Christians remembering the victims of the Aurora, Colorado and contrasting the paralyzing debate between gun control and weapon rights advocates with the nonviolent…
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Grandpa's Using Your Credit Card: Why the National Budget is a Moral Issue
By Ron Sider
For almost fifty years, the federal government has spent more (often much more) than it took in. Continuing that pattern for another ten or twenty years would lead to economic…
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My Quick Thought on Chick-Fil-A
By Andrew Marin
I [Andrew] was just asked by a media outlet my thoughts on tonight’s LGBT Kiss-In Protest at Chick-Fil-A, and how Christians should respond. Here was my answer: This Chick-Fil-A situation…
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God Loves Losers: Reflections on the Olympics
I’m an Olympics junkie. Not only that, but I’m also most ardently pro-American when watching them. My wife, Amy, and I were watching synchronized platform diving two nights ago (honestly, when else would…
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10 Days to Make Love Practical
Have you ever felt moved to put it all on the line? Have you ever felt called to risk it all for the love we undergo when we open to…
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Learning to Speak: Chick-fil-A & our Inability to Dialogue
The culture wars wage on. It seems just about everyone has an opinion on Chick-fil-A these days. The “Do you like their chicken sandwiches and waffle fries?” discussion has been…
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American Christianity is at War Against Itself
By Kathy Vestal
As the national political climate becomes increasingly more polarized and as religion increasingly identifies itself in political terms, we are seeing a widening divide in Christianity itself, one for which…
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Five Reasons Why Failure is Awesome
When I was in preschool, I was insanely jealous of the kids who were given speaking parts in the Christmas play. I actually “repeated” preschool because I was too young for…
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The Family that _______ Together, Stays Together?
“The Family that prays together, stays together.” The two sources I checked (here and here) disagree about who actually came up with the slogan, but both agree that it was…
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Clarence Jordan Never Said, “Nothing can be done.”
Clarence Jordan and Millard Fuller — Photo Courtesy of Fuller Center for Housing This Sunday marks what would have been the 100th birthday of farmer and New Testament scholar Clarence…
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Happy Birthday Clarence!
Happy Birthday Clarence! Sunday, July 29 would be the 100th birthday of Clarence Jordan, civil rights hero and co-founder of Koinonia Farm. He was a farmer, author, and scholar, and…
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The Olympics, Human Rights, and Holy Mischief
“God Is Love, ” inscribed on the tracksuit of the athlete who would become the second-fastest man alive, is what first caught the attention of Australian Olympic official Ray Weinberg…
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The Sacred Messiness of Life in Community
By Jon Huckins
Janna, a midwife at a local birthing center where a few of the babies in our community were born (including our little daughter, Ruby), made a sign of a cross…
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I’m Heterosexual and that's Not Okay
By Mal Green
The title for this piece came to me after a focus group meeting on sexuality with some Incedo missionaries. This is not a research based paper. It is not a…
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Don't Let the Day Pass: The Tragedy of Joe Paterno
I first became a Penn State and Joe Paterno fan toward the close of the 1971 season. My late father-in-law called one afternoon from his home in Charlotte, North Carolina. …
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The Myth of Redemptive Violence
I had a veteran friend once tell me, “The biggest lie I have ever been told is that violence is evil, except in war.” He went on, “My government told…
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Three Considerations for the Liberal Church
In response to the recent Episcopalian convention, Ross Douthat set off a firestorm with his column expressing “concern” that the liberal church is dying due to its theological incoherence. I’m…
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Physical Churches: Do They Matter Anymore?
By Jeremy John
Micah Bales asked a deep question. He suggests that the wealth in property we’ve inherited is hindering our work for social justice. He talks provocatively (as a spiritual challenge, he…
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Oh Wow
By Morf Morford
William Shakespeare, in ‘Hamlet’ describes death as “the undiscovered country” from which “no man returns”. And if we believe in God, there is only one thing we know for sure…
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An Open Letter to Chick-Fil-A President Dan Cathy
NOTE: This was written a day prior Chic-Fil-A made the public statement that their tradition “is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief,…
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Senseless Violence in the Theater and on the Screen
By RLC Editor
During what one moviegoer hypothesized as “part of the movie, ” 12 people were shot and killed with 38 more wounded during a midnight showing of “The Dark Night Rises”…
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50 Shades of Broken: Why Do Women Fantasize About Abuse?
I first noticed it when I bought my Nook Color last year. Erotica. Everywhere. Written by and for women. So much for letting my kids peruse the free books section!…
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No Home, No Car, No Email: STILL Not Homeless
“So you sort of know what it’s like to be homeless?” This is what I’ve been hearing this week from very kind folks who’ve offered my family meals, beds, cars.…
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Where Is God When I'm Hurting?
By Kathy Vestal
She read me my first Junie B. Jones book during one of the many lunch breaks she and Nicki spent in my office that semester. Although at 45 I might…
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Questionable Morality Amongst Pennsylvania Republicans
By Tony Campolo
Not all Republicans are evil, but the leadership of the Republican Party in the state of Pennsylvania has questionable morality. With a Republican governor and a Republican Legislature a bill…
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'Pray Away the Gay' No More?
Late last week, Paul Burkhart jumped into the fray of online conversation surrounding Alan Chambers and Exodus International’s recent significant change in philosophy regarding ‘reparative therapy.’ On my personal site,…
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Jesus’ Invitation to the Discipline of “Wasting Time?”
By Jon Huckins
Photo credit: Jon Huckins A few of us from our missional community asked one of the heroes of our neighborhood to sit down for a meal so we could hear…
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Ten Antidotes to Christian Cliches
This is the final in a four-part series on the overused (and often insensitively employed) phrases that plague the Christian lexicon. Though I felt like I was offering some insight…
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Mirror, mirror
By Morf Morford
When a baby looks in a mirror It sees an ever-deepening mystery, An ever-changing reversal of the familiar, Something known and unknown, Knowable, yet essentially unknowable. A mirror is a…
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Nine (Final) Christian Cliches to Avoid
Read article one in the series here: Ten Cliches Christians Should Never Use Read article two in the series here: Ten More Cliches Christians Should Avoid The response to this series of…
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God Did Not Write the Bible…
By Kathy Vestal
. . . and that doesn’t hurt its holiness or its validity! When I was a child my Sunday School teachers used to say that God whispered the words of…
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Ten More Cliches Christians Should Avoid
After writing up my first list of Ten Cliches Christians Should Never Use, some folks wrote me with other suggestions. After simmering on it for a while, I came up…
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Rethinking the Roman Road: Paul’s Gospel and Violence
By Derek Flood
When I was a teenager I learned to present the gospel using the “Four spiritual laws” tracts. This begins with a quote from Romans 3:23 “All have sinned and fall…
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Ten Cliches Christians Should Never Use
We Christians have a remarkable talent for sticking our feet in our mouths. When searching the words most commonly associated with “Christian, ” the list ain’t pretty. I think part…
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Christians Do Not Have Freedom of Speech
By Jason Hess
One of the things that makes America so great is the ability to express yourself, much to the joy, and even pain, of those around you. The freedom of speech…
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I Went to Gay Pride
By Kathy Vestal
OK, so I am drawn to what is controversial. I want to be there, to see for myself, to make my own judgments. If an event divides decent people into…
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Is Patriotism Really Christian?
buy cialis onlinedth=”171″ height=”240″ />Fred Craddock tells of being on an airplane flight during which he visited with a woman who was returning from vacation. She had been to Switzerland,…
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Wild Goose: A Sacred and Safe Place
Love Wins Ministries’ exhibit at the Wild Goose Festival. Photo by Cathleen Falsani/Sojourners. By now, you have probably read about the Wild Goose Festival. You have heard about the big…
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Why singing “Our God is Greater” *might* make our God seem less great
By Kurt Willems
There’s a song that has made its rounds in the evangelical church circuit called “Our God Is Greater.” This song is commendable on many levels. First, the melody is catchy.…
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"Basically good" and "I'm not a racist, but…"
No one wants to see the sin in themselves. We don’t like to look at our brokenness square in the face. We tend to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt because we know…
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No Bullies – No Victims
By Morf Morford
I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. -W. H. Auden Sometimes an issue emerges in a culture that…
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Wild Goose 2012: An Exercise in Mindfulness
How do you know when someone has a Prius? Don’t worry; they’ll tell you. We got a Prius about four years ago, and immediately we bought into the hype about…
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5 Questions with Jon Huckins — Thin Places
Living as part of an intentional Christian community, I often search for other creative expressions of missional communities around the world. One such example that I love is NieuCommunities. It…
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Senator Coburn Says “Look What I Found”
At the first of the year I accepted my pastor’s challenge to read through the Bible. I’ve finished reading about the kings of Israel and Judah, and none of them…
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WWJB (What Would Jesus Brew)?
There’s a well-known saying, often attributed to Ben Franklin, about God and beer. I’ve even seen it on T-shirts and the like, but it turns out it’s mis-quoted. The one…
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Why I voted for Jesus instead of Obama in the primary
By Kurt Willems
Why I voted for Jesus instead of Obama in the primary… Because, obviously, President Obama is uncontested during the primary election so nothing is actually on the line by writing…
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The Fallacy of Statements of Faith
A while back, I was applying for an editing job with a fairly prominent Christian media company, and in the application process, I was asked to sign a statement of…
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Hijacking Jesus for Partisan Gain
It really gets old, doesn’t it? Every election cycle, the story is the same. This Christian says that Christian is not really a Christian. And why is that? Is it…
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BREAKING: Obama administration stops deporting young immigrants
By RLC Editor
A day after the Evangelical Immigration Table released their “Evangelical Statement of Principles for Immigration Reform, ” the Obama administration stepped forward to announce they will stop deporting young illegal…
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Screw Your Neighbor
By Morf Morford
Have your ever noticed how we so easily invert traditional – even Biblical sayings and values? We might call ourselves Christians, but our language, if not our behavior, will betray…
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Look Up America! An Interview with Gary Moore
By RLC Editor
In a society of 24/7 media, political pundits and an “economic crisis” once a day, Gary Moore is a prophet. His latest book, Look Up America, carries the subtitle: “Financial…
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Thin Places: Glimpses of a New Narrative
By Jon Huckins
(Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images) We live in the downtown neighborhood of Golden Hill in San Diego. It is a place that contains a multitude of narratives. At times they…
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Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven. Nobody Wants to Die
Whether it’s Kony, Syria or Iran, one thing is clear: Americans think more of military intervention than preemptive love. This wouldn’t be surprising, except that so many Americans identify themselves…
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Missional Church: A Paper Revolution
It started with a few pieces of construction paper. If you’ve been following my blog at all over the past few months, you know that Amy and I recently moved…
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Making Space for the Feminine Voice
Women are natural communicators. No one doubts this, really, and a quick, unscientific glance at the blogosphere confirms the female desire to enter into the conversation about important issues impacting…
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When Did This Become My Job?
My husband David and I retired early last year to a small town in East Texas called Emory. There’s not a lot of excitement in Emory, but there’s always something…
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A Theology of America's Zombie Apocalypse
Zombie. Image by Aaron Amat /shutterstock First, Ronald Poppo had most of his face eaten off by Rudy Eugene, and now, Alexander Kinyua reportedly killed his roommate, Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie…
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A National Crisis – It is Time for the Church to Create an Act of God
Before — This Foreclosed Home was Donated by a Bank in Lousiville, KY The foreclosure crisis is a national disaster. The Christian Church should treat it as such and respond.…
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Greater Love?
By Morf Morford
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:12-14 That was the inscription under the stained-glass window in a military chapel of…
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Gracious Nonconformity
Source: The Naked Pastor As followers of Jesus we are to be different from others. We are to be, as a biblically derived phrase puts it, “in the world but…
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A "Red Letter" interpretation of Pentecost
By Marty Troyer
An idea, vision, or question forms in your mind. You feel compelled to do something or say something you might not naturally do. Like run for President, buy a BMW,…
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Are You For Real? Lessons Learned from the Velveteen Rabbit
One of my more memorable confessions occurred several years ago when I confessed to my Franciscan priest that I felt like a Christian poser. After reading the ‘Sermon on the…
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Looking Forward with Patience
“Don’t start me on stories!” – Dr. Vincent Harding. In light of both the Government and Coalition’s failure to let their yes be yes to the global poor, I want…
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Hating the Invisible Man
We finally made it to the Oregon Coast yesterday. I took some pictures in the redwood forest that I’ll share soon, but this post isn’t about that. We got in…
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RE-Membering Memorial Day
By Kurt Willems
Remember… …that life is a gift. To call it a gift is to imply that we did not earn it. Life is grace. Peace preserves life. So on this Memorial…
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Remembering Is the First Act of Love: War, Peace and Memorial Day
When I was a kid I’d go to mass on Sundays and hope that this week’s eucharistic hymn would be my favorite: We remember how you loved us to your…
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Considering the Cost
By Greg Dill
In America, when someone chooses to follow Jesus, not much is at stake in the way of danger or persecution. For this, I have been very fortunate and thankful to…
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Pastor Worley and the Slippery Slope of “Speaking the Truth in Love”
Photo By davidz Every time I blog about homosexuality and the church, I get at least one email or comment that says that I am either wasting my time or…
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Reborn on the Fourth of July
By RLC Editor
Logan Mehl-Laituri grew up in a community that celebrated military service. His faith reinforced his love of country and his sense that that love was best expressed by fighting its…
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The Witness of the "Sons of Hell"
Photo Used by Permission of Patty Akrouche The 23rd chapter of Matthew is probably the harshest speech that Jesus ever gave. We don’t hear many sermons about it because Jesus…
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A Story of Christian-Muslim Friendship: Entering Without Knocking
We all know the standard traditions of marriage in America: something borrowed, something blue… the groom doesn’t see the bride before the wedding… processional and recessional… the kiss, the toast……
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Oppressors, Activists, and Spiritual Stinginess: St. Paul’s Guide to Praying Better Prayers
“And I am praying that you will put into action the generosity that comes from your faith as you understand and experience all the good things we have in Christ.”…
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The Table is the Microcosm of a Practical Faith
By Jeremy John
My generation is a practical generation, and I am challenged by my faith to be a practical person. Don’t get me wrong: I love all verbal and theological things: story,…
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Dear Class of 2012
The weather was kind this year as SUV’s with license plates from New York and Massachusetts started showing up around town, driving slowly with their turn signals on, trying desperately…
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10 Skills Required for Intercultural Transformation
By Marty Troyer
Last week I wrote about Undoing Houston’s Racism, including my own silence when violence was jokingly threatened against people of color. There I said that, “Racism, antipathy and alienation between…
