Anyone who has worked in the restaurant business will be happy to tell you that waiters always fight each other to avoid working Sunday lunch shift. Not because they want to sleep in, but because it’s a widespread belief that the post-church crowd is loud, demanding and unwilling to tip appropriately. In the food service industry, “Christian” is synonymous with “selfish.” Unfair stereotype? Probably. Big groups, regardless of affiliation, tend to tip poorly. More to the point, waiters probably remember... Read more

This profound lyricist who had a way with words is considered by many to be the most significant rap artist (if not artist PERIOD) to have ever lived. His integration of issues that plagued black humanity in America and the thug life with music proved to establish him as some sort of proprietor of poetic justice (which is the name of one of his movies, actually!!) While most other rappers of his time and of today (but not ALL!) flaunt... Read more

If I had to choose one phrase to sum up my deep connection to the Jesus movement, it would probably be the ancient Christian proclamation, Jesus is Lord.  (These three words are way more substantial and traditional than the current phrases Christians often point to: God bless America; One nation under God; etc…)Jesus is Lord, for me, means that there are many things that are not – money, nations, football…and, yes, the Bible.  I don’t worship the Bible.  It’s the word of God, but it’s not the... Read more

While many of us in the “Church World” were still processing the recent headlines regarding a pastor’s suicide in Georgia, two days after his funeral, we were once again taken back by the news of another pastors’ suicide.Both clergy and non-clergy were shocked to hear of theses occurrences, but the news of these suicides isn’t what’s shocking.  What is shocking is that we are only just now beginning this conversation. The unfortunate truth is that we have been down this... Read more

35 years ago, on November 19, 1978, 73-year-old Hyacinth Thrash awoke to a nightmare in the jungles of Guyana. In one of the largest murder-suicides in world history, 918 people from her Peoples Temple church lay dead before her eyes, poisoned by a lethal cocktail of cyanide and fruit punch. The images from this gothic scene of carnage have become indelible: bodies, clad in simple workaday clothing, stretch into the distance in rows, face down on the ground. Seldom discussed and... Read more

Death may be inevitable, but one in three Americans – including most blacks and Hispanics – want doctors to never quit fighting it. And that number has nearly doubled in 23 years, a new survey finds. In 1990, 15 percent of U.S. adults said doctors should do everything possible for a patient, even in the face of incurable illness and pain. Today, 31 percent hold that view, according to a report released Thursday (Nov. 21) by the Pew Research Center’s... Read more

On September 12, 1960, then senator, and presidential candidate, John F. Kennedy stood before a room of protestant ministers to try and convince them that he was not beholden to the Vatican or to the tenants of his faith. Two weeks prior, a group of protestant ministers met in Washington and made a declaration that Kennedy could not be considered independent of the Roman Catholic Church unless he denounced their teachings. His appearance in Houston was designed to address the... Read more

Organized religion has profoundly influenced humanity for thousands of years, affecting everything from what we eat, to how we treat strangers, to the way we dress. But how else has religion impacted humanity – and what if that impact has left us for worse? Religions Fail, by Dr. Thomas Dickerson, is a logical, critical evaluation of the traditional Western religious practices and rhetoric that many people today blindly accept. Written in a realistic and balanced tone for today’s educated reader, Dickerson... Read more

In the first third of the 300s, as the Roman emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and then became its patron, Pope Sylvester, the bishop of Rome from 314-335, had a dream. He understood it to mean, “Now is poison poured into the church.” I owe my awareness of Sylvester’s dream to a lecture by Douglas John Hall, one of the most important theologians of our time. Delivered at Emmanuel College in the University of Toronto in October of this year, its... Read more

If Secretary of State John Kerry were heading to college today, he’d study comparative religion. “That’s how integrated it is [into] everything,” he remarked in August.  Redoing college isn’t an option for Kerry, who studied political science at Yale. But he’s serious about religion. Kerry didn’t waste any time launching the State Department’s faith-based initiatives office just months into his appointment. To lead the office, Kerry selected his friend Shaun Casey, a professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary.... Read more