(ANALYSIS) After decades of progressive dissent, the leaders of the Christian Reformed Church in America finally took a firm stand against the Sexual Revolution. Not only did the 2022 CRC Synod, voting 123-53, condemn “adultery, premarital sex, extra-marital sex, polyamory, pornography and homosexual sex,” it added the small, but influential, denomination's long-standing teachings on these moral issues to its declaration of faith.
Read MoreA Fulton County judge struck down Georgia’s six-week abortion ban Sept. 30, declaring it an unconstitutional violation of a woman’s rights to “liberty of privacy” and the control of her body. “When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then ... may society intervene,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert C.I. McBurney wrote.
Read MoreLev Kreitman has seen plenty of trauma. He was at the Nova festival on Oct. 7, when it was attacked by Hamas. Then, as a reserve soldier, he was sent into Gaza. On Tuesday, when two gunmen opened fire in Tel Aviv near his home, Kreitman leapt into action, shooting one of them. At least seven people were killed in the attack, which took place at a light rail station in Jaffa, in the south of the city.
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(ANALYSIS) As a professor of nonprofit law, I believe some groups that aren’t churches or associations of churches want to be designated that way to avoid the scrutiny being a charitable organization otherwise requires. At the same time, some other groups that should qualify as churches may have difficulty doing so because of the IRS’ outdated test for that status.
Read MoreLast month, the pastors of Winder Church (formerly War Hill South) found themselves locked out of their own sanctuary in Winder, Georgia. The move to have the locks changed came, they said, without warning, but was not entirely unexpected.
Read MoreA Reddit forum led Tabitha Barnes to the Israel Program for Excellence in English, known by its Hebrew acronym TALMA. The organization was recruiting licensed educators for its summer fellowship to teach English to Israeli school children displaced by the Israel-Hamas war.
Read MoreIran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel Tuesday, inflicting no serious casualties, Israeli officials reported. But as missiles rained down on Tel Aviv, two men killed at least six people in a terror attack at the light rail station in nearby Jaffa.
Read MoreThe storm, which made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane, left a wide swath of destruction from storm surge, wind, landslides and flooding through Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee. There have been at least 121 reported deaths. Churches are sending aid throughout the Southeast as damage and needs are assessed.
Read More(OPINION) Kathy and I are winging across the Atlantic, returning to the States after spending two weeks in Italy. For me, the trip been a kind of pilgrimage. Now there’s a word with which many of us are unfamiliar.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The Shroud of Turin, the world’s most famous and most-examined artifact, is revered by devotees as the actual burial cloth that covered Jesus Christ’s body after his crucifixion. Many will consider that inconceivable, but is there reason to accept the claim? Or is this celebrated cloth merely a pious artwork, or a clever fraud, that originated in medieval times?
Read More(REVIEW) Presented as an offbeat rom-com, “Between the Temples” contains a depth of feeling and personal reflection that’s admirable. It’s a must-see for many reasons, and only one of them is its central romance. It’s also a hilarious misadventure, a reflection on life and relationships and the beautiful journey two people take to rediscovering faith.
Read More(OPINION) There is a Talmudic dictum that states, “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” This is part of a discussion of the laws of self-defense, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited it with reference to the targeted killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Daniel Silliman’s “One Last Soul: Richard Nixon’s Search for Salvation” (Eerdman’s, 2024) is a well-written biography of the president who won a 49-state reelection victory in 1972 and resigned in disgrace two years later. Silliman’s scenes include Nixon as a 22-year-old working in his dad’s store “peeling grimy leaves off the lettuce and picking out the bruised fruit, which was starting to decay."
Read More(ANALYSIS) Please allow me a moment of grief and frustration. I am, you see, worrying about friends who are missing, and to be blunt, no one knows if some of them will be fatalities in the the great Hurricane Helene catastrophe in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Basically all the Christian traditions are at the top of this graph — Protestant, “Just Christian,” Orthodox and Catholic, in that order. In each case about three-quarters lean toward not finding it acceptable to shout down a speaker. The groups at the bottom are the three types of nones and the Jewish sample.
Read More(OPINION) More than anybody I’ve ever known, Dad loved God. I mean, he really loved God, as if God was as real and tangible as a puppy or my mom. Meanwhile, he fought a probable emotional disorder on his own, the best he could, with no counseling and no medication, just him and the Holy Ghost waging war with his demons.
Read MoreSpearheading one of a growing number of attempts among evangelicals to empower clergy and laypeople to reframe the political divide, the creators of “The After Party” hope to foster conversations that will not only promote healing but enable those engaged to participate in public life in ways that are constructive, rather than chronically divisive.
Read More(OPINION) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a good speaker with a very good case: Israel is under attack by Iranian-backed terrorists whom the world community is rather guilty of appeasing. If he had stuck to that message in his Friday address to the United Nations General Assembly and gone on to project some humanity and vision, it might have been a more effective speech.
Read MoreHezbollah rockets lit up the sky above Nazareth, Israel, as sirens wailed across the city. Windows shook from explosions as the Iron Dome — Israel’s missile defense system — intercepted the incoming projectiles.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Andriy Kostin, the prosecutor general of Ukraine, explained that his team is looking into the abductions of Ukrainian children to Russia, but also the destruction of Ukrainian cultural heritage linked to Ukrainian identity, among others. He also indicated that his team is investigating mass killings, such as those in Bucha, as a crime of genocide.
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