(OPINION) When I moved to Israel, I couldn’t have foreseen the horror that would unfold less than two months later, when Hamas terrorists stormed the southern border, massacred 1,200 citizens, and took 251 others hostage on Oct. 7. In all the years I spent dreaming of my aliyah — the return to the homeland described in Jewish texts — I never accounted for the country being thrust into national disarray.
Read MoreSeveral decades ago, talented news-feature writers began using an interesting writing technique to offer readers doors into complex, often overwhelming stories. The theory went something like this: Don’t tell me a story about 100,000 people — tell me a story about one person who represents those 100,000 people.
Read MoreThe second season of “Rings of Power” is far from perfect. But the finale pays off its themes in surprisingly satisfying ways, making it far more faithful to J.R.R Tolkien than its most ardent detractors will admit. To say that “Rings of Power” is controversial would be an understatement. Since its premiere, the series has fallen afoul of the culture wars online.
Read More(ANALYSIS) A seasoned ministry colleague wrote to me last week asking for assistance. “I need some help with exegesis of Luke 13:31-32,” he said. “I spoke at a conference last week with many pastors who used that passage where Jesus calls Herod a fox as their rationale for using coarse language about Harris/Walz and the other political side.”
Read MoreThe effectiveness of collegiate ministry depends on how you play the long game. And that doesn’t happen without support. “The Cooperative Program is vital for our work,” said Michael Ball, director of the Baptist Student Union at Mississippi State. “When BSU was formed, it was a cooperative effort of churches coming together to have a presence on the campus.”
Read MoreThe Vatican’s doctrinal summit opened this week with one issue deemed to be out of bounds: female deacons. Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernandez, the Vatican’s prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that the church was not “rushing” on the issue.
Read MoreThe Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, no stranger to reducing tremendous suffering and damage in communities all over the world, has had to find a way to help others as well as themselves. In fact, once Hurricane Helene robbed millions of Americans of their electricity and running water, the focus had to become more local.
Read More(ANALYSIS) On Sept. 23, 2024, when speaking at a side event on “The Inclusion of Women in the Future of Afghanistan” at the U.N. General Assembly, Oscar-winning actress and activist Meryl Streep addressed the dire situation of women and girls in Afghanistan. As she noted, “Today in Kabul a female cat has more freedom than a woman.”
Read More(REVIEW) “Do Right: The Stallings Standard” is a heartfelt documentary that focuses on the life of former football coach Gene Stallings. The film primarily shows his time as head coach with Texas A&M University (1965-1971) and the University of Alabama (1990-1996). However, the film goes deeper than just football.
Read More(REVIEW) Many of us might be acquainted with conventional narratives that combine 19th century colonialism and Christianity with cultural suppression and forced conversion in Asian territories where local inhabitants fought back intruders and crushed evangelical missions. Thailand, however, has a different history.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The New Atheists failed because they underestimated the human need for meaning. Religion, for all its faults, provides a framework for understanding the world, a sense of community and a way to cope with life's challenges. By dismissing religion, the New Atheists offered nothing to fill the void. Rationality and science are, of course, crucial, but they don't address the existential questions that religion grapples with.
Read More(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.
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