Christ, The Word, The Church, The Republic
Agents of Wrath As I’ve tried to explore recently, most of us have not gouged out our eyes and cut off our hands. I know Christians who have sold houses and fields and lands, but it’s usually to buy another set of houses and fields, with a little something extra for that mission trip to..
Picture a baseball stadium full of Hasidim — somber faced, bearded men wearing black hats and frock coats. Their hair, by our standards, appears both a little ragged and severely uniform at the same time. Shaved close above the ears and in the back and then allowing for long, curled sideburns in front, (what they..
All Souls Day “Look out the window,” my wife said. It was a Sunday afternoon. I had my dates mixed up, and there was an early evening Halloween party in the works. All of the Riley grandchildren and cousins and little people friends were gathering for a hayride. I’m telling you it was a grand..
How sacrificial, really, are most of us? I rarely work out on Sunday, but I felt the need to balance out a little Fall Saturday gluttony, and I used my elliptical time to check in with a pastor I haven’t seen in years — David Jeremiah of Shadow Mountain Community Church. I faith-channel-surfed a little..
The Age of the Image Anyone else think it strange, or at least inadequately considered, that Hugh Hefner should receive a loving pop-culture send-off upon his death, just about a week before the news cycle was flooded with Harvey Weinstein’s tale of epic sexual harassment? On the one hand, we were invited to ponder Hefner’s..
Decent Folks Correct Their Children As I’ve written before, I firmly believe that racism is officially over in the United States, but that only applies to reasonably normal people. There is, in fact, an approved, coddled and utterly “unchained” kind of racism out there, and it flows at fire-hydrant volume from people who have been..
In a stunning theological development, pastor and “Desiring God” teacher John Piper has come to the conclusion that God is just not “big enough” to solve race problems. Employing his usual amorphous, affable and directionless prose, and employing the phrase ‘I don’t know’ for earnest emphasis three separate times, Piper admitted that race is just..
The Annual “God is What You Make Him” celebration at Honeyville Community Church turned violent last week when the church ran short of Max Lucado adult coloring books, according to multiple eye witness accounts. “It’s like the old baseball cap days at major league games,” Pastor Tim Danson explained. “Once a year we give away..
We took a day or two off. Mary found a place in a vineyard, with big high ceilings and cornice molding and a marble bathroom and a porch that looked out over the harvested vines, and if I could spend my life with all of you it would be there, in the late afternoon, drinking..
More on Hefner & Church Chest Pounding There have been a few reactions, and some big-ministry commentary I found interesting in the wake of Hugh Hefner’s death, so for those of you who have sex all figured out, this might be self-evident, but I’m guessing that Margaret Meade neurosis-free sexuality is just as much in..
