What do Texans want to find if they have the financial ability and the time to get away from that searing reality? To be blunt, they are looking for water, breezes, dry air and, yes, altitude. This brings us to the tragic headlines at the heart of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast.
Read MoreA recent concert for peace in Gaza brought together Jews and Palestinians at a Catholic church in Santiago. Some 500 people attended the concert for cello, flute and classical guitar, with two female voices, organized by the Archbishop of Santiago, Cardinal Fernando Chomalí. The archbishop, who organized the event, is a descendant of Palestinian immigrants.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Moyers died on June 26 at the age of 91, after a long and complex career in which he served as a speech writer and press secretary for President Lyndon B. Johnson, followed by decades of work with CBS, NBC and PBS. However, before that, the Rev. Bill Moyers was a Southern Baptist pastor in Texas towns like Brandon and Weir. He was proud of those roots and his convictions as a progressive Baptist.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Are Superman and Jesus headed for an American revival? For better or worse, people’s love of Superman and devotion to God have always been tightly fused. Whether this will lead to a long-term revival for both or just a short-term connection remains to be seen. For now, a lot more people are looking up to the heavens than were before.
Read More(ANALYSIS) July 11, 2025, marks the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, the worst atrocity on European soil since World War II. In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army overran Srebrenica, brutally murdered thousands of men and teenagers, and expelled between 20,000 and 30,000 people (women, children and older persons) from the town.
Read MoreBill Moyers was arguably among the best reporters on the religion beat. Even if it wasn’t always the main focus of his work or what comes to mind for those familiar with his legacy, still, he was a lifelong spiritual seeker.
Read MoreThe IRS said that religious leaders could endorse political candidates in churches and other religious centers without losing their tax-exempt status — carving out an exemption from a decades-old tax code provision prohibiting nonprofits and churches from direct political engagement.
Read MoreOne provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was signed into law by President Donald Trump is an increase in the estate and lifetime gift tax exemption to $15 million, indexed for inflation moving forward.
Read More(ANALYSIS) This is a mountainous and, until recently, remote area that is culturally and historically distinct from the rest of India. It is also the most thoroughly Baptist region in the world. For example, the church in Mon, a town of approximately 17,000 people, is the largest Baptist church in Asia. It dwarfs surrounding buildings and can seat 10,000 worshippers.
Read More(ESSAY) When I began exploring the history of Christianity and the art it inspired, I had no idea it would lead me to one of the closest friendships of my life. That friend was Alexei Mihailovich Lidov, a world-renowned scholar of Byzantine art and architecture. The path to that friendship began in 1999, when our family traveled to Turkey for the first time.
Read MoreAleksei Mihailovich Lidov was one of the world’s most distinguished art historians. A scholar of deep intellect and quiet defiance, Lidov came of age in the late Soviet era, navigating a world split between official ideology and private truth. He died on May 29 at the age of 66. In this 2017 interview, Lidov looks back at his life, his family and what made him into an art historian.
Read MoreThe Trinity Broadcasting Network was sued by a media company started by TV personality Phil McGraw, whose eponymous talk show “Dr. Phil” captivated 10 million U.S. viewers weekly during 21 seasons on TV. The lawsuit claims TBN saddled McGraw’s enterprises with more than $100 million in financial obligations while not delivering on production and distribution services.
Read MoreThe bodies of seven evangelical Christians and a relative were found July 1 in a shallow grave in the Guaviare province in south-central Colombia. The six men and two women had been reported missing since April.
Read MoreA former California assistant pastor has been sentenced to two years in state prison for stealing funds from a church while its founding pastor lay dying, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office announced.
Read More(EXCERPT) Could the flourishing history of journalism provide clues for enabling it to flourish in future? Why is society’s watchdog, the press, with its long and often honorable pedigree, going feral? Failing to bark at misrepresentation and fraud, while snarling at truth? Why does journalism have the privileged position it does?
Read More(OPINION) There’s been much academic and journalistic attention paid in recent years to the documentable benefits of treating a host of mental disorders with psychedelics. “This Is Your Priest on Drugs” looks at a published study in which researchers administered psilocybin to clergy from various religious traditions.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Throughout his career, you see the outlines of a man burdened by the myth he helped build. A man who stared down America’s worst tendencies and tried to warn us, only to watch them metastasize. And in that exhaustion, there’s something quietly Christlike — not in purity, but in genuine suffering.
Read MoreChristians in this central Texas community are working to help after catastrophic flooding claimed at least 89 lives and left an unknown number of others still missing over the holiday weekend. A tractor-trailer rig from the Churches of Christ Disaster Relief Effort in Nashville, Tennessee — nearly 1,000 miles away — arrived at the Riverside Church of Christ in Kerrville on Sunday afternoon.
Read More(ANALYSIS) With the increasing secularization of America, there’s far more freedom for Hollywood writers to tell stories about the afterlife that are in conflict with Christian narratives. There’s less cultural pressure to conform to Christian norms, so filmmakers are now freer explore alternative or ambiguous views of the afterlife.
Read MoreCamp Mystic says it is “grieving the loss” of 27 campers and counselors as the search continued Monday for victims of catastrophic Texas flooding over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.
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