“Lord, I repent of ways I’ve been complicit in & contributed to misogyny & sexism in the church by my cowardly and inordinate deference to male leaders in order to survive rather than simply appropriately respecting them as my brothers. Forgive me for being part of the problem.” Beth Moore tweeted (@BethMooreLPM) this just last week, March 27 2018. I almost missed it. It wasn’t until we were eating Easter dinner a few days later when my mom (who is better... Read more
Fifty years. Fifty years since the shot rang out. Since Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. Over the years there has been a lot of reflection on the legacy of King, our “inconvenient hero.” But 50 years out, how do we confront the legacy not just of his leadership in the movement, but also of his assassination? What has his death meant for the civil rights movement, for the church, and for... Read more
Are you (or your child) trying to decide where to go for college? Chris suggests four questions you should answer first. Read more
When I write about the canonical gospels, as I often do, I follow a commonly accepted chronology of their composition and “publication.” But “commonly” does not mean universally, and rival dating systems do exist. Some scholars, including some very fine ones, argue for much earlier datings, and if they are correct, this has implications for the historical authority of those texts. Let me explain why I believe the standard consensus view in these matters is actually correct. Bear with me... Read more
In 1976, many evangelical supporters of Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter were disillusioned when the presidential candidate spoke rather openly about matters of the heart to Playboy: I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times … Christ says, Don’t consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife. The guy who’s loyal to his wife ought not... Read more
I am here expanding a column I posted on this site back in 2014. I had previously posted on Jesus’s Resurrection appearance in John 21, where the disciples meet him at the Sea of Galilee. I argued that this scene, or something like it, was the very oldest version of the Resurrection story, and that by several decades it predated the familiar story of Jesus meeting Mary Magdalene in the garden. We miss this point because the present structure of... Read more
On this rare occasion that major league baseball opens its season on Maundy Thursday, Chris recommends some of the best writing about the relationship between Christianity and America's national pastime. Read more
“Mary A. young admited into the hiest orderer Preasthood,” Brigham Young wrote in his diary on November 1, 1843. The entry has long intrigued me, in part because Young apparently what he wrote above that sentence and because he married a plural wife named Harriet Cook on the same date. What did it mean for Mary Ann, Brigham Young’s only wife from 1834 until he married plurally in 1842, to be admitted into the highest order of priesthood? It certainly... Read more
Though she did not overtly situate her work within feminist conversations, L’Engle nonetheless points toward a vast spectrum of feminisms, some of which resonate deeply with Christian faith. Read more
In the 1920s eugenics was controversial but in the mainstream of American society — with many Protestant preachers as likely to support it as the Catholic hierarchy was to oppose it. Read more
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