When it comes to the situation in Baltimore, it is possible to say multiple things at once. First of all, police brutality is a real, terrifying issue, particularly for the black community. The community is not making up real concerns and fear, as the in-depth investigative report by the Baltimore Sun reveals. Not only has the police brutality and excessive force caused poisoned relationships between officers and the community they serve, but it has also led to huge sums being... Read more
You can learn everything about Joshua Overbay’s naturalistic, haunting film As It Is in Heaven from the opening and closing scenes. I was surprised at how it began. I was told this was a film about a doomsday cult, but the first scene is idyllic, peaceful, beautiful. A simple young woman readies herself for the day. She pins her hair up, dresses in white, and walks peacefully through rural wildflowers and trees, heading down to the bank of a river.... Read more
Today is Ask an Atheist Day. The Secular Student Alliance describes the purpose of this day this way: National Ask An Atheist Day is an opportunity for secular groups across the country to work together to defeat stereotypes about atheism and encourage courteous dialogue between believers and nonbelievers alike. The event is intended to be an opportunity for the general public – particularly people of faith – to approach nontheists and ask questions about secular life. We’re encouraging all SSA... Read more
I’ll be real for a moment: yes, taxes are often burdensome, especially in the complexity of the tax code and the burden it often places on those of us who are struggling to get by. The past few years have been particularly difficult tax years for our family. And yes, taxes are sometimes spent for less than noble purposes. There’s bureaucracy and poor management of funds and fights over budgets and even criminal mishandling of monies sometimes. One often gets... Read more
There’s not really words to describe the joy and confidence I experienced as I read New Testament scholar N.T. Wright’s latest book, Simply Good News. In it, Wright argues that too many people (Christians and nonbelievers) think that the Gospel is “good advice” (how to live or get eternal life or be successful or whatever), but that in fact it is “good news“: “It is the news that something has happened as a result of which the world is a... Read more
Earlier this week, I posted my review of a mother-son memoir, Amy and Jonathan Hollingsworth’s Runaway Radical. The book really resonated with me, but it also left me with a lot of questions. I got in touch with Amy and Jonathan and asked if I could interview them. They graciously agreed. Below you will see the results of our discussion. We covered a lot of ground: parenting (particularly with a sensitive child), religious obsession and mental illness, cultivating a love... Read more
I get the draw of world missions. I grew up on Christian missionary biographies. These folks were my biggest heroes: they were people who sacrificed comfort and possessions in order to live in real surrender to God and in order to go share God’s love with those who had never heard His name. Whether a missionary was going to a jungle that was untouched by time and modernization, to the far East, or to the former Soviet Union, I was... Read more
Last night, it was the beginning of the end for AMC’s Mad Men: a show famous for the sex, the women, the glamor of the 1960s. A show so tightly dialogued and shot that we will be unpacking its richness for many years to come. A show about an era in the process of dying, about a man (Don Draper) desperately clinging to his relevance by the edge of his fingernails, about a very flawed man trying to find meaning... Read more
In a world of constant bad news, today, there is good news! What is this good news? Is it that Christ’s spirit rose again? That His soul now lives? That Jesus lives in my heart? No, friends, those assurances alone are too paltry for the kind of joy we have today. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Lisa Miller wrote an insightful Newsweek article on the Resurrection published in 2010. She points out that in the time of the... Read more
On this most solemn day of the Christian year, let us stop for a moment at the foot of the cross and consider the great act of love by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You can read the whole narrative of Jesus’s crucifixion here. As you think about the story of the crucifixion, where do you see yourself in the story? Do you see yourself in Judas, the betrayer (the follower who falls away…the follower who turns to things... Read more
Rebecca Florence Miller
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In