“The property is worth $30 million, and HPPC has left the national Presbyterian denomination for a smaller, more conservative sect. The Presbyterian Church (USA) believes it should retain ownership of HPPC’s church property, but that isn’t sitting well with Highland Park Presbyterian, which has 4,000 active members and is one of the largest Presbyterian churches... Continue Reading

Of all places, the Church should surely be the most realistic. The Church knows how far humanity has fallen, understands the cost of that fall in both the incarnate death of Christ and the inevitable death of every single believer. In the psalms of lament, the Church has a poetic language for giving expression to... Continue Reading

Healthy churches should be comprised of people in every generation. When church leaders seek to do whatever is necessary to pull in more of the younger crowd (such as Millennials), they run the risk of pushing out people in other generations before them, and therefore create an unbalanced church ministry. The Millennial generation is not... Continue Reading

“One of the enduring characteristics of the Reformation, particularly among those of those Protestants not identified with the magisterial Reformation, is a deep distrust of tradition. In an oft-noted irony, this has lead to many churches having an unexamined and hardened tradition of anti-traditionalism. Such a mindset runs counter to the teaching of the New... Continue Reading

Yet, despite these clear mandates, I find that churches and other Christian organizations are sometimes leery of reporting abuse when it comes to their attention. They look for ways to avoid complying with the law due to any number of reasons: fear of legal consequences, repercussions within the organization, or harsh reactions from the public.... Continue Reading

“Bishop Bling” was in a class of his own, spending nearly $500,000 on walk-in closets, nearly $300,000 on a fish tank, more than $200,000 on a spiral staircase and $20,000 on a bathtub. Tebartz-van Elst also spent more than $600,000 on artwork — at a time when some dioceses in the U.S. are selling their... Continue Reading

“Overall, incentives to make charitable gifts could suffer somewhat due to the proposed 2% floor on charitable contributions, meaning that only gifts to charity above 2% of an individual’s adjusted gross income (AGI) could be deductible. Moreover, with the increased standard deduction and cuts to other itemized deductions such as the real estate tax reduction,... Continue Reading

“We are going to explore both some of the reasons for this decline in various church circles, and some ways that we can recover and strengthen a vibrant doctrine of the church.  This should, I would think, be a matter of existential concern for seminary students such as yourselves.  After all, many of you are... Continue Reading

Spanish Christian Church, located on the ground floor of one of the buildings at 116th and Park Avenue, is led by Revs. Santos Mercado and Thomas Perez. The building was built in 1910, and some reports said the church had been there for the last 70 years.   (WNS)–An explosion reduced two buildings in East... Continue Reading

“In recent years more than 700 Clergy and 5,000 Christians have petitioned The Episcopal Church and five Episcopal Bishops also requested information and transparency in The Episcopal Church with spending more than $22 million dollars of church funds in 80 or more secular lawsuits against departing churches and dioceses. These lawsuits are ongoing with no... Continue Reading