It is often assumed that slaveholders imposed Christianity on their African slaves and that separate black churches were the creation of white Christians who didn't want black people in their congregations. It turns out, those assumptions are wrong. While the slaveholders were pushing a religion of pure law, slaves were evangelizing each other with the liberating Gospel of Christ. And they started their own churches as spiritual and cultural havens.
The different strains of Christianity have different approaches to politics, based on their assumptions about theology and church polity. Baptists focus on individual liberty. Methodists seek social perfection. Calvinists criticize the culture and want to take it over. Lutherans. . .well, that's a little complicated. (A free post) Read more
We are told that you can have morality without belief in God. This is true, up to a point. But some of our actions do reflect our worldview or philosophy of life. And some moral actions are predicated on belief in a transcendent moral truth, grounded ultimately in God. Such as the principle of human equality.
A number of prominent conservatives, including some conservative Christians, are openly homosexual. How should congregations and conservative organizations deal with this issue?
I have always been an apologist for boredom. So I appreciate Matt Labash for arguing that we have become so overstimulated that a dose of boredom--or, as Thomas Merton describes it, doing nothing and sitting still--can help us.
Church musician Jonathan Aigner calls "Of the Father's Love Begotten" a "perfect hymn." What does that entail? I would say, doctrinal truth and devotional richness expressed in moving poetry and beautiful music. What are some other perfect hymns?
Religious conversion generally has to do with spiritual transformation, personal commitment, theological conviction, and the like. But we are now seeing conversions to make a political statement. And yet, these too can grow into genuine faith.
A leaked FBI document reporting on "Radical Traditional Catholics" indicates that the agency is defining conservative Christians as a terrorist threat, to the point of recommending that churches be infiltrated by FBI informants.
What Bonhoeffer says about vocation of the leader, the leader's temptation to become "the ultimate authority of the led"--that is, an idol--and the temptation of the led to treat the leader in this way has applications beyond political rulers. It can apply to leaders in the church, in the family, and in the workplace.
"Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. The Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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