Tony Jones spent last week in Sri Lanka, on a tour for bloggers sponsored by World Vision. You can read all of his posts from Sri Lanka here. When the World Vision staff briefed us, they explained that Simras was orphaned when he was just seven months old. His mother had died; his father moved on, leaving the boy with his mother’s sister. They explained that the aunt and uncle with whom Simras lived had a subsistence existence. We’d been... Read more

From NYTimes: The issue is between supernatural vs. anti-supernatural, believer vs. anti-believer, and faith vs. anti-faith. The flow of students from the Muslim world into American colleges and universities has grown sharply in recent years, and women, though still far outnumbered by men, account for a rising share. No definitive figures are available, but interviews with students and administrators at several Catholic institutions indicate an even faster rate of growth there, with the Muslim student population generally doubling over the... Read more

From Qideas, where you can read the whole piece: The political “left” and “right,” Dems and GOPers, Progressives and Conservatives claim to stand on fixed points of impervious truth on a linear spectrum that stretches across a horizontal plane from pole to pole. The spectrum’s fixed middle marks the permanent philosophical and political “center.” And, politicians conveniently cry that political party is synonymous with political philosophy. It does not work this way and has never worked this way. Rather politics’... Read more

Every Protestant learns that what distinguishes a Protestant from a Catholic is that Catholics believe in merit while Protestants trust entirely in God’s grace. In fact, Catholic theology has a considered development of ideas when it comes to merits so there is reason for this. The issue, however, for the Protestant is not so much what Catholics think as what the Bible teaches, and by “Bible” I mean both Old and New Testaments. What it teaches can be a bit... Read more

Last week’s GOP convention forced a question upon America, and it is a question Republicans will no doubt press until the election. That question is this: Are you better off now than in 2008/2009? Good question and the sort of yardstick that can be used to measure for voting for or against a candidate. CNN.com has a Money page, and I voted (Kris and I are better off than we were when President Obama was elected), and the chart to... Read more

By Kurt Willems: It would be safe to say that I went from conservative evangelical focuses to a progressive faith emphasis. Still holding to the essentials of the Christian theology, but believing that true discipleship meant doing certain things. It’s interesting to me looking back: at one end of the pendulum of my faith journey I tried to avoid things, and at the other end of the swing I tried to do things. Both attempts at living the Christian life miss the... Read more

Ed Stetzer: What are you doing to encourage a “we-all-minister” approach? In the first church I planted we did something strange, but we were tying to communicate something important. In the Sunday program, normally you would print the name of the church, phone number, and the obligatory: “Ed Stetzer, Pastor.” Instead we listed everybody. I was listed as the pastor but we included the greeters, the children’s ministry coordinator and a host of other ministers– since all God’s people are... Read more