Ministers out here smile more in the pulpit, it's possible they don't but I've just noticed it on this trip. There's a warmth and friendliness that we need to cultivate from the front. I should also say that even the exiled Brits even smile a bit more than they used to.

When people ask me whether Christians need to keep this command, I explain this is the wrong question. The question for me as a Christian is not, "Do I have to keep this law?" but rather, "How does God, my Redeemer and covenant Lord, expect me to keep this law?"

What sort of explaining to society is it that the church is supposed to do exactly? The church is a counter culture. We are told not to "conform to this present age", we are not to be lovers of the world system, we stand in opposition not apposition to society. The church is not supposed to embrace the mood of a transient culture; to do so will soon enough make it a widow

Can a person who refuses to believe the verdict of science in this matter really be trusted to have sound judgment on anything else? After all, it takes a geologist to tell us that the Earth is older than 7,000 years, but anybody who receives communion in a Catholic parish on Sunday can tell he is eating bread and drinking wine

Protestants will still comprise the majority, with about 56 percent of the members in both chambers. But that continues a steady decline since 1961, when 75 percent of members were some variety of Protestant.

The nationwide push for gender-neutral housing picked up speed in 2010 and now includes 99 public and private colleges, according to the LBGTQ Center at UNC. Schools that have some form of gender-neutral housing include Columbia University, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, the College of William and Mary and the University of Michigan.

Homemade goods are popular enough among Wheaton's student body that students even sell some of their creations to their classmates. At a craft fair hosted last week by Wheaton's graduate program, handmade cards, jewelry, bags, hats, scarves, headbands and candles covered tables set up as makeshift booths. Melinda Hammond, a doctoral student, sold headbands, yarn tutus and crocheted hats with Sesame Street character's faces woven into them. This year's fair is the largest it has ever been, reflecting the interest in handcrafted materials, she said.

“Throughout American history, the most successful church movements have not been the ones that kept up with contemporary culture, but the ones that were confident enough to tug hard against it.” (New Yorker)

'Answer my question about women's rights or saving the whale' might simply be another way of saying, 'I don't want you to tell me that my neglect of my wife and children is an offence to God.'

Far too often the American church seems to assume a position of authority over the rest of the world, when often these international leaders are seeing God work in ways that those of us in American can just marvel about. This meeting was great as it allowed our American leaders to simply sit back, take a position of humility, and learn from these outstanding leaders.