Using the tools of sociology and cultural anthropology, Wuthnow argued that Will Herberg’s well-known tripartite schematizing of America into Protestants, Catholics, and Jews has been replaced by a twofold division between cultural liberals and cultural conservatives, and that this shift has resulted in a dramatic “restructuring of American religion.”    After five years of an... Continue Reading

 Jesus’ going back into the world has served as a model for the church’s ministry until the present day. When Christ calls people into His kingdom, He doesn’t pull them out of the world forever. He sends them back out with the gospel.   I’ve long been fascinated with those moments in Jesus’ life when the... Continue Reading

The fact is, though, that things simply aren’t these days the way they used to be. Turns out that the last round of presidential elections was based on anything but honest premises. Explicit lies—repeated dozens of times by our incumbent president about his healthcare law, the Benghazi attack, and other things—were the foundation stones of... Continue Reading

Cowden feels as if he himself became an offense to the PCUSA institutional preservationists.  That thought is offensive to consider. It unmasks the intolerance of a system that cannot abide the continuing presence of people who lead change in evangelical and missional directions.   Presbyterianism has historically been described as a system of faith and... Continue Reading

Long before LBJ’s call to combat poverty, Christians heard a higher call to compassion for the poor. How to live out that biblical command in the context of 21st-century America is the challenge.   “It’s just too easy to love ‘The Poor,'” policy expert and author Amy L. Sherman says in a video interview for the study... Continue Reading

I want to add an important duty to those given above to the job description of the pastor. One often neglected by evangelical church leadership today: that of resident theologian. The Apostles of the New Testament–and especially Paul in the Pastoral Epistles–are jealous to see local church pastors (or elders) steeped in the richness of Biblical doctrine,... Continue Reading

 (Warnock) wants to hold together what he calls “the memory of Jesus” with the “distinctive resonance [that occurs] when the church is one built by slaves and formed, from its beginning, at the center of an oppressed community’s fight for personhood and freedom.” He’s not writing abstractly or without regard for context. He’s attempting to... Continue Reading

But if anything is misunderstood here, it’s not hipsters. It’s the Church. The true Church will keep right on doing what she’s been doing for thousands of years–preaching the Gospel, teaching the faith, administering the Sacraments–whether you try to change things or not. She’ll do her forgiveness thing, and she’ll be good at it.  ... Continue Reading

Do you know the scene at the beginning of Terminator when the terminator goes into the biker bar? He’s looking around sizing up people looking for clothes that will fit him. As women, how easily do we size up a new acquaintance? From first glance, we take in hair, make-up or lack there of, clothes,... Continue Reading

Praying in circles is extra-biblical and un-biblical, but it is more than that: it is anti-biblical. It directly violates the principles of prayer. When Jesus teaches us to pray, he teaches us to approach God as a child approaches a father, not marching in circles around him, but simply asking with confidence and humility. To... Continue Reading