My husband and I had the privilege of visiting Budapest last weekend, where our daughter is spending a year. We attended an active church meeting in an old movie theater in the city and thoroughly enjoyed the sights, sounds, and company. The picture to the right is taken from Gellért Hill looking along the Danube. The Buda side of the river is located near the edge of the ancient Roman Empire, and the ruins of the Roman city of Aquincum are... Read more

Jackson Wu (PhD, SEBTS) teaches theology and missiology in a seminary for Chinese church leaders. Previously, he also worked as a church planter. He has just released his second book One Gospel for All Nations: A Practical Approach to Biblical Contextualization. In addition to his blog, jacksonwu.org, follow him on Twitter @jacksonwu4china. The male students in my class agreed, “The Bible says that men are more important than women.” In Chinese culture, one never wants to provoke a teacher, but that is exactly what they... Read more

The author of this blog post is a missionary in North Africa with Pioneer Bible Translators. She, along with her husband and two little girls, lives on the outskirts of a refugee camp working to facilitate disciple-making, Bible translation and mother tongue literacy among two least-reached Muslim groups. Her favorite things about North Africa include drinking scalding hot mint tea, wearing colorful tobes, watching her daughters play on ant hills, and hearing people’s stories. Her least favorite things include rats... Read more

The essence of “church refugees,” or the “dechurching of the former intensely involved church leaders,” is “they’re finding ways to be the church outside of the institution” (27). I quote from Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope’s Church Refugees as I set off on a series on this book, one that has solid and rigorous sociological data at the core. I teach at Northern Seminary, and we prepare people for ministries in churches, so I am doubly curious about church refugees — most... Read more

Source: Mountain Turnpike twists through dense oak, hickory and spruce trees and keeps winding, like a slithering snake, through the mountains that separate Virginia and West Virginia. But on a clear day, looking south from the Monongahela National Forest, what looks like a giant white Lego structure emerges from this sea of green. And that’s about when it starts. Your cell phone drops reception. Your radio spins, unable to pull up any stations. You can shake your phone all you... Read more

Part II of Gary N. Fugle’s new book Laying Down Arms to Heal the Creation-Evolution Divide looks at prominent questions that concern many Christians arising from the evidence for the age of the earth (4.5 billion years) and by evolutionary biology. Gary Fugle (Ph.D. UC Santa Barbara) is a Christian who spent many years as a biology professor (now retired) at Butte College in Oroville, near Chico California. He has heard all the typical “Christian” (i.e. spontaneous creationist) responses to... Read more

Coming home from church Sunday Kris and I ended up behind a truck in our village with two flags flapping in the wind — big flags not those dinky ones that hang out windows. The Stars and Stripes, and a Confederate flag. Equally displayed. One couldn’t help but think the driver was flouting recent decisions and flaunting his freedom. My question for him, had we had a chance to converse, would be: Is this the best way to bring peace... Read more

Abby Ohlheiser: Was your insanely successful older sibling born to achieve? Is your youngest child pre-programmed to seek the limelight? Nope, says a massive new study analyzing the traits of 377,000 high school students. At least, the study says, not enough to make any practical difference. In the end, researchers found that first-born children have a single-point advantage when it comes to IQ along with some measured personality differences from those who are born later. First-borns were more “extroverted, agreeable and... Read more

It’s now well-known — it’s all over the webs and blogs: Franklin Graham said some things that unleashed two kinds of response: hate him or love him! I have read two — and only two — sorts of response: Some have grabbed the worst statements he made and called him names or said he broke laws and they are crowdpounding the man. It’s ugly and here’s the big thing: crowdpounding is not redemptive. It’s an attempt to use brute force to... Read more