romans on Religious Conflict

In George Bernard Shaw’s play about Joan of Arc , as Joan faces her execution by burning, she addresses those in power who have condemned her: “I will now go to the common people and find comfort in ...

The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are to subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith.

Not long after the December 2012 Newtown shootings, and all the speeches by civic leaders, memorial services, and funerals were over, Samuel G. Freedman wrote a column in The New York Times titled “In...

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

By misinterpreting the Enlightenment and the corresponding rise of empiricism as an existential threat to Christian faith, many frightened Christians sequestered themselves into rooms of certitude.

I find your lack of faith—disturbing.

We don’t come to Him as bad people trying to become good people; we come as rebels to lay down our arms.

[In the middle of the twentieth century a] young Russian communist went to a meeting one night where he heard a Christian expounding his faith. The communist was angry. How could anyone still believe ...

Written almost a hundred years ago, this excerpt from the Reverend John W. Rilling points out one of the main reasons we continue to observe Lent, a period of repentance and discipline for many who ca...

God stretches our faith in order to prepare us to receive his promises. That often requires painful rewiring. We need updating, just as an old house may need rewiring. The old electrical wires might b...

In Christianity faith in the Mediator is not something optional, not something about which, in the last resort, it is possible to hold different opinions, if we are only united on the ‘main point’. Fo...

Because the gospel of Jesus is not an ideology or a philosophy or a methodology or a therapy but a supernatural in-breaking of God into our lives, I am concerned at how many Christians do not bring it...

Faith is a free surrender and a joyous wager on the unseen, unknown, untested goodness of God.

Arguments won’t change people. Simply giving away kindness won’t either. Only Jesus has the power to change people, and it will be harder for them to see Jesus if their view of Him is blocked by our b...

Charles Templeton was a close friend and preaching associate of Billy Graham in the 1940s. He effectively preached the gospel to large crowds in major arenas. However, intellectual doubts began to nag...

Hark the herald angels sing, "Glory to the new-born king." Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!"

In a quiet hospital room in North Carolina, an eager young doctor with a bright future evaluates his elderly patient with not much future left at all. She has a terminal heart condition, inoperable. A...

Pastor: Satan and the powers of darkness seek to divide and destroy. And all too often God’s people either run from the battle in fear and defeat, or pick up the wrong weapons in the fight, relying ...

W.H. Auden is one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century, who grew up in England but who spent some of his life in the United States. In November 1939 he found himself in a German-language movie th...

Philip Yancey writes of a friend whose marriage was choked by hostility. One night the friend reached the breaking point: “I hate you!” he screamed at his wife. “I won’t take it any more. I’ve had eno...

In her book Family Ministry, Diana Garland relates the following account by R.L. Honeycutt on the origin of the Irish expression “Chancing one’s arm”: On display in St. Patrick’s cathedral in Dublin...

Leader: We are people of the resurrection. Witnesses to God’s glorious victory in Jesus Christ, which brings peace and transforms the power structures of this world. But we also know that we live in ...

Note from TPW: Kara Martin addresses life in the secular workplace, sharing insights to help you lead your congregations to understand their faith and work and also to bring the Kingdom into your o...

Pastor: Even in our Easter joy, we confess before our gracious God our failings and sin. ( Silence for reflection and personal confession) Pastor: Merciful Father, People: we con...

A number of women at Kairos Los Angeles have at times assisted a local ministry that helps women who are in transition. They provide housing and often help these women find jobs. Some of these women s...

Faith, thankfully, does not preclude doubt. It consists of staking your life on the rumor of grace.

Christians are often accused of two wrong-headed views of the body. One is that we ignore the body in favor of a disembodied, spirits-floating-on-clouds spirituality. The other is that we are obsessed...

Only at the cross of Christ does man see fully what it is that separates him from God; yet it is here alone that he perceives that he is no longer separated from God. Nowhere else does the inviolable ...

When I was considering the possibility of embracing Christian faith as a young college student, what I feared most was that it would make my life smaller rather than larger—less love, less joy, less c...

The more we allow ourselves to personally experience sanctification by faith, the more we also experience healing by faith. These two doctrines walk together. The more the Spirit of God lives and acts...