Posts in Christianity
High On Heresy: Exposing The Biblical Cannabis Myth

(ANALYSIS) Some cannabis proponents baptize modern drug culture in ancient authority. This isn’t the first effort to combine cannabis with Christianity — and it won’t be the last. Proverbs warns again and again: “Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler.” And Ephesians drives the point home: “Do not get drunk with wine… but be filled with the Spirit.”

Read More
Nigeria’s Christians Under Siege: Why CPC Designation Was Long Overdue

(ANALYSIS) President Trump recently designated Nigeria as a "Country of Particular Concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act. Like most of his acts, this ignited major controversy, much of it reflecting longstanding and now renewed disputes about what is really happening in that country. 

Read More
Amid West Africa’s Coups, Faith Leaders Emerge As Pillars Of Stability

In the last decade, more than a dozen coups have shaken West Africa and the Sahel. Amid this turmoil, religious leaders are emerging as stabilizers who are guiding dialogue and providing a moral compass in societies caught between soldiers and fractured civilian states.

Read More
As Violence Rages On, Nigeria’s Christians And Muslims Find Unity Through Soccer

Two soccer teams — each comprised of eight Muslims and eight Christians — faced off as a mixed crowd cheered. Only months earlier, 52 people were killed in yet another religious massacre nearby. Some of the players on the field had lost relatives in that attack. Yet, they chose sports over revenge.

Read More
How Relic Hunters Helped Build Collection Of Saints’ Artifacts

When other boys his age were trading Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards, Eric Lavin was collecting saints’ relics. In seventh grade, Lavin began writing to other dioceses to request relics, and now, more than 16 years later, Lavin has grown one New Jersey church’s collection from 20 to more than 600 relics. 

Read More
🇫🇷 Love In Many Languages: Diverse Christians Connect In Mediterranean Melting Pot 🔌

God and Google can bring people together in any language. A diverse group of Christians connected on a recent Sunday in Marseille, France.

Read More
‘Sarah’s Oil’ Serves Up A Christian Message Aimed At Tackling Racism

(REVIEW) While evangelicals are often said not to care about racism, quite a few movies made for that audience over the years have dealt with the topic. “Sarah’s Oil” is in that tradition — a decent faith-based historical drama that deals explicitly with race, but one that may become a rarer occurrence in the coming years.

Read More
On Religion: Reports Of Christian Genocide Grab Trump’s Attention

(ANALYSIS) The Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo had every reason to be emotional as he stood in a shallow grave containing the corpses of 11 members of his Nigerian church. Responding to pleas from Republicans in Congress and religious conservatives, President Donald Trump warned the United States may soon intervene.

Read More
Robert Morris Asks Court To Dismiss $1 Million Defamation Lawsuit

Robert Morris, the controversial founder of Gateway Church, has asked a Dallas County court to dismiss a $1 million defamation lawsuit from Cindy Clemishire. Morris’s motion to dismiss comes just weeks after the embattled pastor pleaded guilty to sexually abusing Clemishire in the 1980s, starting when she was 12 years old.

Read More
When Rage Replaces Reason: The Rise Of America’s Violent Creed

(ANALYSIS) Street protests spill into riots. Universities host intimidation campaigns. Digital mobs savage anyone who dares step outside the script. Across America, political anger is spilling into the open, and on the left it increasingly takes a violent shape. What begins as dissent can tip quickly into destruction.

Read More
Trump Calls Out Nigeria For Christian Persecution, Threatens Military Response

President Donald Trump designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) Oct. 31 for tolerating religious freedom violations especially against Christians, and threatened sanctions and military force to discourage such persecution.

Read More
Religion Over The Last 50 Years: Have We Reached Peak None?

(ANALYSIS) I’m not exaggerating when I say this — there is no other long-term, cross-sectional survey of the adult U.S. population that asks about religion in such a useful way. It’s the tree trunk of empirical social science in this space, and it’s cited everywhere. The phrase “General Social Survey” appeared in more than 4,400 articles published in 2024, according to Google Scholar.

Read More
Holy Ground: The Buildings That Made — And Unmade — The Christian Faith

(REVIEW) It can be easy to forget the role physical space plays for various faith and why talks of bringing about a “New Jerusalem” were not far-fetched. They started in places made of stone — and as Fergus Butler-Gallie points out, “Jerusalem is a somewhere, not a nowhere. Specifically, it is here.”

Read More
Most Churches Aren’t Growing: What We Can Learn From Those That Are

(ANALYSIS) There’s a certain kind of conversation that happens among pastors and denominational leaders, usually in almost hushed tones: “Did you hear about how [insert church name] added a thousand new attendees last year?” Someone will inevitably chime in with another example of a church experiencing rapid growth. Before long, the discussion circles back to the same question: “How in the world do they do that?”

Read More
At Cuba’s Notorious Garbage Dump, Locals Find Grace And Community

(ESSAY) Again and again, deadly incidents occur at Cuba’s largest garbage dump — sometimes from sudden eruptions of violence, sometimes from hunger or disease. But a group of about 50 locals, led by a pastor, have banded together to look out for one another. “Sometimes they kill each other over a piece of copper,” said one local woman.

Read More