Vox: I’m a Scholar of the “Prosperity Gospel.” It Took Cancer to Show Me I Was in Its Grip. It is true that the prosperity gospel encourages people — especially its leaders — to revel in private jets and multimillion-dollar homes as evidence of God’s love. But among the less well-heeled believers, I sensed a Continue reading

Sojourners: 8 Sayings Christians Use to Let Ourselves Off the Hook We’ve mastered Christian-ese catch phrases to get us off the hook from ever really having to love our neighbor as ourselves. Before I go on, please allow me to climb off my high horse and admit that I know all of these phrases by Continue reading

The Morning Drive: You Keep Using that Verse, But . . . Every where I go, I hear Christians and Bible-minded people quoting passages of scripture or I see certain passages on signs, bumper stickers, or on personalized car plates (tags). At first glance these passages seem to be encouraging or seem to be full of promise. Continue reading

Tim Archer has shared some thoughtful posts about the composition and inspiration of the Bible. I highly recommend checking these posts out and participating in the discussion. Some Initial Thoughts on Inspiration Thoughts On the Composition of the Bible The N.T. Writers Really Complicated the Situation! Follow-Up To Comments On the New Testament Writers Which Continue reading

Water to Wine Gathering Brian Zahnd and the Word of Life Church are putting together a conference that sounds quite interesting. Water To Wine is a gathering for those who sense the falseness prevailing in Americanized Christianity and yearn for something better. It’s a gathering for those who want to see the church rescued from fundamentalism, Continue reading

Desiring God: Would You Let a Stranger Live with You? Just the other night, my husband and I were talking to our kids about a difficult hospitality decision that would affect all of us. We reminded them that we have to start with the question, “Is this something that God is calling us as a family to Continue reading

Radically Christian: Luke 22:36 Re-Examined: Sell Your Cloak to Buy a Sword As soon as they finished the discussion about the swords, they went to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed and where a group of armed soldiers came to arrest Him. When the apostles saw that Jesus was about to be arrested, they asked, Continue reading

The Morning Drive: Stones The leaders bring her to Jesus and remind Him of the Law of Moses and the command to stone those guilty of adultery. They want to know what Jesus thinks should be done. They are trying to place Him in a moral, ethical, spiritual, and legal juxtaposition.  Would Jesus agree with Continue reading

Huffington Post: Trump Spiritual Advisor Wants You To Send Her Up To 1 Month’s Pay Or Face ‘Consequences’ I hesitate to post this since it almost guarantees some kind of partisan reaction, but I have to admit that I never thought the prosperity gospel would wind up being so big. To me, Jesus’s words are clear Continue reading

Radically Christian: Slavery, the Civil War, and Why It Still Matters to Me I hear people say, “We can’t judge the actions of people 150 years ago by today’s standards.” I would say I’m judging American slavery not by today’s standards, but by the standard of Scripture. Most of these men not only claimed to be Christians Continue reading