While no religious ceremony is legally required for those elected to Congress and the Senate, many choose to take oaths of office over Christian and Jewish texts, and Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim, took his oath over a Quran. But Gabbard’s use of a non-Abrahamic text will be unique and is symbolic of the... Continue Reading

“It is God’s creative word alone that brings about something new. Jesus, born of Mary is fully man and fully God, without confusion and without separation…” he writes. “The accounts of Matthew and Luke are not myths taken a stage further. They are firmly rooted, in terms of their basic conception, in the biblical tradition... Continue Reading

But those days seem to be over.  Amazon offers Kindle Direct Publishing and Barnes and Noble offers Pubit so that independent authors can publish their own books.  Typically, writers can just upload a word document, design a cover, fill out their applications, and their books will be online for sale within 48 hours.   A... Continue Reading

A modern obstacle is that churches no longer keep minute books or other such documents in hard-copy. Everything is digitized and easily deleted. Nor do pastors keep diaries that are tremendous resources for later researchers. The stories of how churches were founded, under what conditions they flourished, how they overcame obstacles, what previous pastors were... Continue Reading

When Hunter, cloaked in his white pastor robe and carrying his Bible, showed up at the church Nov. 4 ready to preach, church officials said, they confronted him in the foyer and demanded that he produce the signed declaration from Bishop T. Larry Kirkland stating his new assignment. Hunter did not have a copy of... Continue Reading

But Kim cannot be fully, and certainly not fundamentally, understood unless you take into account her faith and the resilience her faith produced. That word – “resilience” – has come to me, as it has to others, time and again from the time Kim was first diagnosed with cancer until her departure from this world... Continue Reading

Sometimes the overall culture of an organization discourages leaders from holding people accountable. I have seen this phenomenon, for example, in a number of churches. Staff members will not be carrying their weight. They come and go as they please. No one really knows how much they work in a given week, but many suspect... Continue Reading

“This amendment clarifies what the BCO and our Standards already assume is the Biblical practice, and there is no good argument not to ask our churches to conform to this simple instruction in order to obey the plain Scriptural accounts and to help preserve our liturgical unity together as a denomination.   Therefore, we should approve... Continue Reading

Doing biblical theology, redemptive history, isn’t a cure-all, not when it’s done wrong. Sometimes it comes out like this: isn’t it neat that Jesus is here in this strange place, Amen. Sometimes it leaves out what Jesus has to do with these very real issues in my life. I learned from Jay Adams that a... Continue Reading

By 2050, it is predicted that there will be no ethnic or racial majority in the U.S. and Hispanics are projected to make up 25 to 30 percent of the population. Thus, the impact of beliefs and behaviors of Hispanic-Americans is becoming increasingly significant.     “This report provides critical insights into Hispanic-Americans—a rapidly growing... Continue Reading