A few weeks ago I was driving to Michigan from my home in Chicago. I was excited to see my family there, and also my wife who had gone before me a few days. I love seeing my family. There is no other group of people that reflect who I am. I am a little like my Mother, a little like my brothers, a little like my sister, more like my Father then I care to admit, and I am... Read more

I have heard of Stephen Mansfield for a number of years. He became well known after publishing The Faith of George W. Bush. Although I had never read it I heard quite a great deal about it. On one side I head voices condemn it as propaganda, and a revisionist account of American history. On the other hand people held it up as proof that there was a committed Christian in the White House, which was a good reason to... Read more

Here are some interesting figures from Mark Noll’s The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith.: • This past Sunday it is possible that more Christian believers attended church in China than in all of so-called “Christian Europe.” Yet in 1970 there were no legally functioning churches in all of China; only in 1971 did the communist regime allow for one Protestant and one Roman Catholic Church to hold public worship services, and this was mostly... Read more

“Use a glass mirror to see your face; use works of art to see your soul”– George Bernard Shaw Contents of this Article Introduction History of icons Divergence in Art and Practice Iconoclasm in the 8th and 9th Century The Emergence of the Modern Era Lutherans and icons Reform Churches and Icons Anglicans and Icons The Radical Reformaton and icons Icons in the “Modern” Catholic church Icons in the “Modern” Eastern church Bearing the image of God in a Post-Modern... Read more

This video is pretty sweet…I’d love to hear what people have to say about it! http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8896410&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1 Radical Marxist, Radical Womanist, Radical Love: What Mother Teresa Taught Me about Social Justice from The Veritas Forum on Vimeo.

The first time someone show me the Liturgy of the Hours my first thought was, “you must be joking.” I couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to pray in such a complicated way. My Bible had one ribbon, this thing had half a dozen and the person had put bookmarks in it to boot. At that point my response was thanks, but no thanks. In the next few years I came to realize that I could use more prayer in... Read more

My wife Joan and I have been adjusting to life here in Chicago since we moved last fall. It has been quite a transition. I have been working towards my MDiv at North Park theological seminary. We are finding our place in Chicago and the community at at North Park. I have found a home at Resurrection Covenant Church which has been a source of joy for me, and has allowed me to continue doing worship ministry from time to... Read more

Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity has been stirring up the evangelical world. In it McLaren offers some bold perspectives on how faith is to be shaped. One reader recently commented somewhat ironicly that “Some day our great-grandkids will lament the way their generation falls away from classical emergentism. O where is a MacLaren for today, they’ll cry…” The great faith traditions of Evangelicalism have developed flowers to help people understand what they belive (often at the cost of... Read more

The following is how one group of Christians in Spain over 1000 years ago dealt with pedophiles. A cleric or monk who seduces youths or young boys or is found kissing or in any other impure situations is to be publicly flogged and lose his tonsure. When his hair has been shorn, his face is to be foully besmeared with spit and he is to be bound in iron chains. For six months he will languish in prison-like confinement and... Read more

I have taken the Belif-o-matic test several times… It’s actually helps me track where my thinking has changed on certain things as My results have changed… One thing has remained though… I am always told I am 100% a Orthodox Quaker but when I look at what that means it becomes quite clear to me I am NOT an Orthodox Quaker… ALSO Seventh day adventists get high marks… but again that is NOT me. The rest of the results make... Read more