(ANALYSIS) To the left of my standing desk sits my treasured collection of drawings that our grandchildren have given me. Our grandkids are unabashedly excited about their drawings. They should be. They remind us of how we’re made in God’s image and likeness.
Read MoreThe New Garden Church is not a traditional Church of Christ. Then again, it’s not trying to be. The church plant — which grew out of the Hermitage Church of Christ, a half-century-old congregation that closed in 2018 — seeks to reach a new generation with the Gospel.
Read More(ANALYSIS) As a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, Father Stephen Noll felt a sense of loss when he learned he would need a smartphone app to attend baseball games. Noll calls himself a “digital dinosaur, perhaps from the Jurassic period.” What he didn't expect, after 50 years of priesthood, was for this digital divide to affect his ministry.
Read MoreThe site of the deadliest church shooting in the nation no longer stands, as First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs moved forward this week with a 2021 decision to demolish its former sanctuary. Church members voted 69-35 to demolish the Texas sanctuary after a gunman killed 25 there in November 2017, including a pregnant woman, and injured 20 others before killing himself.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Several important threads have combined over the centuries to give rise to the Holy Grail metaphor commonly used nowadays. These include elements of pre-Christian mythology, the veneration of relics in Christian tradition, and medieval literature from Great Britain and France.
Read MoreThe Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Philadelphia Phillies 11-1 in Phoenix, but Jewish fans might care less about the outcome than about a rare phenomenon in baseball history — an all-Jewish battery. Phillies Jewish pitcher Max Lazar made his major-league debut in the bottom of the 7th inning, throwing to Jewish catcher Garrett Stubbs, and got Kevin Newman to fly out to right field to end the inning. He returned in the 8th inning and retired all three batters, including Joc Pederson, who struck out.
Read MoreGovernment-fostered misinformation and disinformation are hindering religious liberty in several places globally, USCIRF said in an August factsheet, and spreading societal religious persecution including violence. USCIRF defined misinformation as a claim that is false or inaccurate, and disinformation as a false or inaccurate claim that the government deliberately disseminates.
Read More(ANALYSIS) This extraordinary political year displays an increasingly multicultural America. Starting with Harris, she'd be the first Asian American to be president, the first with Hindu roots as signified by her name, the first female and first female African American. Despite Donald Trump’s feigned racial perplexity, her dual Black identity is equally obvious since she chose to attend Howard University and has been a member of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church for three decades.
Read MoreGordon College, a Christian school in Wenham, Massachusetts, could be required to pay back more than $7 million of COVID-19 relief funds. The school contested, arguing that its request for loan forgiveness was denied because of religious discrimination.
Read MoreRyan Walters, Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction, spoke recently inside the Board of Education conference room at the state Capitol complex in Oklahoma City. The interview came amid a national debate that every teacher in Oklahoma must be provided with physical copies of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Ten Commandments.
Read MoreWhat political activities can churches and other religious nonprofit groups engage in legally? According to the Internal Revenue Service, “Section 501(c)(3) organizations are precluded from, and suffer loss of exemption for, engaging in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.”
Read More(ANALYSIS) The debate over a potentially less religious future for the Republican Party took center stage during discussions surrounding the Republican National Convention in July. On the first day of the festivities, Amber Rose was given a speaking slot. Is there a rising number of nonreligious Republicans that are going to take the party in a less socially conservative direction?
Read MoreIf you look up “Baptist” in the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, you will find: “… a member or adherent of an evangelical Protestant denomination marked by congregational polity and baptism by immersion of believers only.” Ah, but I have heard quite a few Baptists, especially those leaning toward an Anabaptist identity, argue that the vague term “evangelical” doesn’t apply to them and some may even debate the word “Protestant.”
Read MoreAbout 200 Christians of multiple nationalities — Russian, Ukrainian, Iranian and Israeli, to name a few — sang a hymn of unity together, their citizenship on Earth far less important than a shared home in heaven. Some attendees drove 45 minutes. Others spent more than a day on planes and buses. They gathered in a city known for a particular distance — 26.2 miles.
Read MoreThe Department of Justice has expressed an interest in an Arizona case involving a church that has been dealing with alleged zoning code violations for a benevolence food pantry it has operated for nearly 25 years.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Christianity, with its rich history of metaphysical claims and moral imperative, offers a bulwark against a descent into chaos — not for everyone, I know, but for a chunk of humanity. It provides a narrative that encompasses human suffering, offers redemption and asserts the inherent dignity of the individual, grounded in the image of God. Peter Thiel is aiming to bring that to the tech world.
Read MoreChristian universities are dying. Several years of soaring costs, declining demographics and insufficient cash reserves have steadily driven the market into crisis. Yet, a 79-year-old private institution in North Carolina appears to be an anomaly. Carolina University’s enrollment has surged 29% this year, rising from 826 to 1,068 students.
Read MoreIn her bid to be the nation’s first female president, Kamala Harris tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, thrusting the outspoken Minnesota Lutheran into the national spotlight. Walz, 60, brings political experience as well as suburban-and-rural appeal to the presidential race.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Catholic history is full of childless women respected for their work, many of them members of religious communities. They often contributed to lasting social and cultural change. In fact, the very existence of women’s religious communities is a testament to the value Catholicism puts on childless women’s lives.
Read MoreU.S. adults support in vitro fertilization in general but are more divided about destroying embryos created in the process. The assisted reproductive technology procedure involves fertilizing an egg with sperm in a lab dish and then implanting the egg in a woman seeking to get pregnant. Around 2 percent of births each year in the U.S., or almost 100,000, involve IVF.
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