The smells of rice balls and beef stew waft through the house — and if you pay attention, the faint smell of incense. It’s the gio for my grandfather, the Vietnamese celebration of his death anniversary. My grandmother is bustling in her kitchen, readying my grandfather’s favorite dishes. We place the food in front of his altar, beside the incense bowl filled with uncooked rice and ashes. “Have you done lay yet?” my mom asks me. I hadn’t. Lay is... Read more

There are some who remember that the Rev. Jerry Falwell began his university in Virginia because he believed that the bulk of universities and colleges in the country were aggressively liberal and anti-religious. His argument was that all the major religiously-created school had drifted away from the religious beginnings and had cut their ties with the denominations that founded them: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Duke, and the list was long. Now the argument seems to be that our whole current educational... Read more

Last week the U.S. chapter of the international Christian humanitarian organization World Vision made headlines: first when president Rich Stearns confirmed to Christianity Today last Monday that the organization would employ Christians in same-sex marriages, only to reverse the decision two days later, in the wake of torrents of criticism from conservatives, some of whom threatened to withdraw their financial support from World Vision and its well-known child sponsorship program. Yesterday a Google executive resigned from the board of World Vision U.S. in protest, and Rachel Held Evans likely spoke for many... Read more

by Kimberly Peeler-Ringer R3 Contributor A North Carolina pastor recently came under fire—and brimstone—for a comment he posted on Twitter giving women advice about marriage: Ladies if you want to be the only woman your man looks at shine it up! Don’t let the hoes he comes across out shine you! #savemarriage. After the inevitable backlash for his comments, he then took the opportunity to post an apology of sorts on You Tube, available here. In the video, this pastor... Read more

A noted expert in Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Hispanic theologies has come to the Hilltop as a visiting scholar. Dr. Fernando Segovia will be in residence in the Center for the Study of Latino/a Christianity and Religions in SMU’s Perkins School of Theology March 31-April 11, 2014. Segovia is the Oberlin Graduate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity in Vanderbilt University Divinity School, where he has taught since 1984. He is also a member of the theology faculty of Stellenbosch University in South Africa. He teaches and researches... Read more

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing” (2 Corinthians 2:14-15). There is a long tradition in Catholic Worker circles of regarding guests who come for hospitality as Christ. As Dorothy Day wrote, “The mystery of the poor is... Read more

As anticipated well before its release Darren Aronofsky’s Noah has seen Glenn Beck, Ken Ham, Jerry Johnson, and others express outrage at the film’s departures from the Bible. In response, articles in Slate, National Catholic Register, and numerous blogs have turned to Genesis 6-9 to gauge the film’s fidelity to “the original.” Teasing his Daily Beast article, for instance, Yale’s Joel Baden tweeted: “The new #Noah movie: just how biblical is it?” Meanwhile, James Tabor of UNC Charlotte, observes on HuffPo that “none of these Christian critics explain why this ancient story, written by Jews, and... Read more

“Religion” has become a bad word for many Americans. This does not necessarily mean that Americans have become any less religious. Instead, many people have come to prefer different language to describe their religious beliefs and practices. This is because the word “religion” has accumulated negative connotations. Americans tend to equate religion with Christianity. And especially, people think of guilt-inducing proscriptions on behavior, seemingly arbitrary rules, hell-fire preaching on sin and judgment, unreasoning insistence on dogma and doctrinal orthodoxy, divisive... Read more

DEBATES OVER religious freedom in the United States are suddenly everywhere. Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby, whose conservative Christian owners want to be able to refuse to cover certain kinds of contraception required by the Affordable Care Act. Legislators in Arizona passed a bill that would let businesses decline to do business with gays and lesbians on religious grounds, although the conservative governor vetoed the law. And in December, the ACLU prevailed in... Read more

If you’ve been waiting for someone to link the disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 to The Rapture, thanks to the Reverend Billy Graham’s daughter, your wait is over. According to Anne Graham Lotz, the disappearance of the Boeing 777 over the Indian Ocean could be a sign that The Rapture might be around the corner. Ms. Graham Lotz’s Malaysian Airlines theorizing, coupled with her brother Franklin’s recent declaration of support for the way Russia’s Valadimir Putin is dealing... Read more