The book by my good friend Hal Senkbeil, "The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor's Heart," is the winner in the category of Church/Pastoral Leadership in the 2020 Christianity Today Book Awards! This would make the perfect Christmas present for your pastor. See why.
Guilt is a universal feeling, since none of us fallen creatures can live up to our own principles. But without a religion offering atonement and redemption, people must deal with their guilt in other ways, such as politics.
Is bad theology that has been taken over into secular thinking--namely, the view that substances are themselves evil, as opposed to the way they are used--making our substance abuse problem worse?
One of the legal experts who testified in the House Impeachment hearings said that what Trump did was "worse than the misconduct of any prior president." David Harsanyi details what other presidents did that was much worse.
New Atheism is reportedly fading. Not that there are fewer atheists--their numbers have gone up slightly to 4% of the population--but the movement has splintered and the general public and even many of the New Atheists themselves have lost interest in the cause. Two insiders tell what happened.
Faith and reason need each other. Faith without reason can degenerate into superstition and fanaticism. Reason without faith can degenerate into tyranny and meaninglessness. Christianity has solved this dilemma, according to Samuel Gregg, by teaching that the Logos--the underlying basis of rationality--IS God, incarnate in Jesus Christ.
The biggest demographic of the unchurched is the white working class. This is confirmed in a study of how income level correlates with never going to church. In general, the percentage of never-churchers goes down as the income brackets go up. But this is a recent phenomenon and runs counter to conventional wisdom.
Research from Barna on the general public's perception of evangelicals shows that 25% of Americans just don't like evangelicals--not so much because of their politics but because they are "too pushy with their beliefs."
On the day after Thanksgiving, shoppers plunge into "Black Friday," the decorations go up, and the Christmas frenzy begins. Yes, we decry the commercialization of Christmas. But don't you still enjoy the Christmas hooplah? A writer says that the trappings of Christmas communicate a feeling that we need.
On Thanksgiving we express gratitude for our material belongings, for our family, for our country. Before the feast, we thank God for this food and the hands that prepared it. That is to say, Thanksgiving is about vocation. A meditation on a quote from Luther on how God works through human beings to give us His gifts.
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