(OPINION) This week I call attention to another vital principle. Our subject for today, ladies and gentlemen, is humility. I’ve been mulling over an essay by Frank Bruni that appeared in The New York Times. He’s a professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University, and a contributing writer for the Times’ opinion section.
Read MoreA flurry of traditional and social media discussion surrounding two SBC resolutions (one on in vitro fertilization, the other on religious liberty) has provoked clarifications among Southern Baptists following the Convention’s Annual Meeting June 11-12 in Indianapolis.
Read More(ANALYSIS) On June 13, 2024, Global Rights Compliance, an international nongovernmental organization, published evidence of Russian and pro-Russian forces using starvation as a method of warfare against Ukrainian civilians during their 85-day siege of Mariupol between February and May 2022.
Read MoreA specified Protestant version of the Ten Commandments must be displayed in all public schools in Louisiana by January 2025, the mandate of a bill Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law on June 19.
Read MoreIt appears that Emily Harrison — creator of the “Dear Christian Parent” website — is some kind of religious countercultural radical. By the way, for me “radical” is a compliment when discussing matters of digital-screen culture. The question is what brand of faith-based radical she is, since her Substack’s “about” page offers classic nondenominational-era language: “Believer in Jesus. Wife. Mother. Writer & Speaker on kids and screen time. ScreenStrong Ambassador.”
Read More(ANALYSIS) The Anglican Church in North America has been one of the success stories in recent American church history. But the denomination is experiencing growing pains. Its growth has flattened, and there is growing discontent in the denomination about its inability (or unwillingness) to address head-on some vital issues.
Read More(ANALYSIS) It’s hard to get a read on where the SBC is headed, honestly. Some events would lead one to believe that they are headed in a very conservative direction (like the IVF resolution), while others tend to point to a denomination that is conservative, but not fundamentalist. But make no mistake — the data says that the average Southern Baptist is further to the right today than the average Southern Baptist from 30 or 40 years ago.
Read MoreGrand Canyon Education (GCE), a for-profit marketing agency for Grand Canyon University (GCU), has been sued in federal court for allegedly engaging in a racketeering scheme by students who enrolled in the university’s doctoral programs.
Read MoreVolunteers from the village and the Bia Lamplighter College of Education — which is associated with Churches of Christ — mixed bags of cement with water. The material would form the foundation for the first girls’ boarding school for primary education in a region known as the Bia West District, according to Lamplighter founder Augustine Tawiah. The nearest alternative is 11 hours away in the capital city of Accra.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The son of an Italian father and a Black mother, Mazzulla is an outspoken Catholic whose pregame routine includes pacing through an empty arena, praying with a rosary made with wood from the court of the original Boston Garden. While his faith has drawn many cheers across social media, it also attracted some criticism.
Read MoreTwo years ago, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the nationwide right to an abortion. In the aftermath, many churchgoers say they’ve seen their congregations involved in supporting local pregnancy resource centers. A Lifeway Research study finds three in 10 U.S. Protestant churchgoers have seen at least one type of congregational connection with those local centers.
Read MoreRev. James M. Lawson Jr., who died on June 9, 2024, at the age of 95, was a Methodist minister and a powerful advocate of nonviolence during the Civil Rights Movement. Lawson is best known for piloting two crucial civil rights campaigns – one in Nashville in 1960 and the other in Memphis in 1968.
Read More(REVIEW) “Sound of Hope” highlights an important issue and improves on many of the problems in the typical faith-based film industry. But the problems it does retain from the genre heavily weakens what could have been a truly wonderful theatrical experience. For those of us who’ve been waiting on faith-based films to match their secular counterparts for a long time, “Sound of Freedom” definitely gives us something to hope for.
Read MoreThe history of the soundtrack of American evangelical culture is profiled in the new book, “God Gave Rock & Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music” by Leah Payne, Associate Professor of American Religious History at Portland Seminary. Payne, as a Pentecostal pastor’s daughter in a working-class town in rural Oregon, grew up with this music and later married an aspiring CCM artist.
Read MoreJoe Mazzulla woke up on Tuesday morning an NBA champion. It has been a very long and unlikely success story rooted in faith. Mazzulla — whose only head coaching experience before taking over the Boston Celtics in the fall of 2022 was at the NCAA Division II level — guided the team to a record 18th NBA championship after defeating the Dallas Mavericks in five games.
Read MoreA former nun has founded a not-for-profit organization, Girls Way of Life Charitable Trust, to help parents in these situations. The trust has established an inclusive school in Victoria Falls named Mother of all Humanity Private School to provide education solely for children with disabilities.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention was as newsworthy as usual, but unusually significant. The Tennessean depicted the deliberations as “a turning point for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.” If so, will this turning turn out to be Southern Baptists’ migration toward neo-fundamentalism, a growing force within America’s complex evangelical movement?
Read More(ANALYSIS) Louisiana is not a stranger to controversy over religion in schools. In 2023, it joined almost 20 states that require or allow officials in public schools to post the national motto, “In God We Trust.” Now, the Bayou State could become the first in the nation to require the posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms in public schools, colleges and universities.
Read MoreAppealing to their Christian faith, Cynthia Petion promised investors returns of up to 200% in just one year through her cryptocurrency investment platform, NovaTechFX (Novatech). Four years later, in May 2023, NovaTechFX collapsed. Now New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing Petion, her husband Eddy and the defunct company for allegedly defrauding tens of thousands of investors.
Read More(OPINION) This week I want to talk about a pair of concepts that are typically used side-by-side in Christian circles, and which also strike me as among the more misunderstood and egregiously misused principles in the church lexicon. Understood rightly, they’d benefit everybody. Those two words are “sin” and “repentance.” Taken together, they suggest the idea that we’re all sinners who need to repent.
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