While I was born much too late to be the legal property of a person in America, I have been the recipient of racism. When a classmate called me a racial epithet in my first year of college, I was deva...
Many have heard of the polymath and famous atheist Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), whose career as a public intellectual touched on a variety of disciplines, including philosophy (he is considered one o...
Many of us presume that atheists and agnostics don’t think or care one bit for God. But this is not the case. Heinrich Böll, a German writer and devout Catholic, once joked, “I don’t like these atheis...
The Christian who cares only for God’s approval lives free of the tyranny of conformist pressures, relaxed under the steady direction of the God who loves us and gives himself for us. Those who try to...
Truth-oriented Christians love studying Scripture and theology. But sometimes they’re quick to judge and slow to forgive. They’re strong on truth, weak on grace. Grace-oriented Christians love forgive...
1 John 1:8-9, Galatians 2:21, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Psalm 51:17, Luke 18:13-14, Isaiah 64:6, Philippians 3:9
As for Christians, well, we really have just one thing going for us. We have publicly declared… that we are desperately in need of Another to give us his righteousness, to complete us, to live in us. ...
In the novel The Second Coming one of Walker Percy’s characters says about Christians, “I cannot be sure they don’t have the truth. But if they have the truth, why is it the case that they are rep...
In Vanishing Grace , Philip Yancey examines the growing negative perceptions of evangelicals. Although the book was written in 2014, these dynamics have only intensified in the era of MAGA and Ch...
2 Samuel 7:18-19, Isaiah 66:2 , Matthew 23:11-12, Philippians 2:3-4 , Luke 18:9-14, Psalm 51:17
The priest Henri Nouwen learned humility on a mission trip to South America. He went expecting to pass on his wisdom to the poor and unenlightened. During his six-month stay, Nouwen concluded that a d...
Micah 6:8, Galatians 6:9-10, Matthew 25:35-36, Romans 2:21-24, Matthew 5:14-16, 1 Timothy 3:2-3, James 3:1
If a CEO or an accountant is caught in an adulterous affair, it is not likely to make the news at all. But when a pastor is caught in an affair or embezzling money, it is a big deal. Which leads us to...
The United States retains a basic respect for religion though it may be following European trends: surveys show a steady rise in the “nones” (now one-third of those under the age of thirty), that is, ...
Think of the impact if the first thing radical feminists thought of when the conversation turned to evangelical men was that they had the best reputation for keeping their marriage vows and serving th...
The Church is not a clean, well-lit place where everything runs smoothly and actions automatically match ideals. It is, in the words of the Gospel, a field of chaff and wheat growing up together and b...
Daniel 3:16-18, 1 Kings 18:21, Isaiah 55:8-9 , Romans 14:5-8, Psalm 119:105, Matthew 7:15-16
First, most Christians attach their convictions to Christ personally. In other words, we form our convictions in order to please Jesus, not ourselves. Convictions do not express what we think or feel ...
I’ve asked strangers and casual acquaintances, “Why do Christians stir up such negative feelings?” Some bring up past atrocities, such as the widespread belief that the church executed eight or nine m...
Throughout two thousand years of history, Christians, both whole churches and individual believers, have consistently been able to ignore many of Jesus’ key commandments and invitations. We have eithe...
Proverbs 29:25, Acts 4:13, John 15:18-19, 2 Timothy 1:7-8, Colossians 4:5-6, Matthew 5:14-16, Romans 1:16
Why is it so intimidating to talk about Jesus in contemporary western culture? One obvious reason might lie in the ubiquitous negative portrayals of Christians in mainstream media. Sam Chan makes this...
Galatians 6:10, Hebrews 11:13-16, 2 Corinthians 6:9-10, Matthew 5:44, 1 Peter 2:11-12, John 17:15-16
In an early Christian document known as the Epistle to Diognetus (c. A.D. 120-200), the author wrote a response to some propaganda circulating in the Roman Empire. People had spread false rumors about...
James 1:27, Hebrews 13:2-3, 1 Peter 2:12, Galatians 6:10, Romans 12:13, Acts 2:44-45
The fourth-century emperor Julian (AD 331-336) feared [Christians] might take over the empire. Referring to Christians as “Galileans” and Christianity as “atheism” (because of their denial of the exis...
There is a story—likely apocryphal—of Alexander the Great discovering a soldier asleep at his post, a grave offense. When the guard was brought before him, the king asked his name. “Alexander,” the yo...
There have always been Christians who are well-adjusted to greed, well-adjusted to fear, well-adjusted to bigotry. There have always ways been Christians who are maladjusted to greed, maladjusted to f...
The Christian religion, then, teaches men these two truths; that there is a one whom men can know, and that there is a corruption in their nature which renders them unworthy of Him.
Hebrews 12:1-2, Matthew 5:14-16, 1 Corinthians 1:25, Micah 6:8, Colossians 3:16, James 3:17
In Soul-Making , Allen Jones shares an intriguing visit to the Coptic Monastery of St. Macarius out in the Egyptian desert. There, he meets Father Jeremiah, a monk who spins tales of the desert fathe...
Those who have to be ordered to love God usually believe that obedience involves those excluding all other loves, to the extent of hating the world, the flesh, and even the self. We therefore find amo...
In a class that I was in once, I saw a man with his well-worn, heavily marked Bible open before him, playing a game of “trap the teacher.” He should have known better than to try to trap this particul...
We have too many Christians who have accepted Jesus into their hearts and who have been baptized and who have confessed their sins and who have joined the Church and who are in Bible studies and who a...