by Darlene KelleyR3 ContributorAfter hearing the news of a pastor, Teddy Parker, whom I do not know, it was clear to me that I should wait to post anything about it in this forum – first, out of respect for his family and those who knew and loved him; second, because of what it triggered for me on a personal level, I needed a minute.Hearing stories such as this one, hits way too close to home. I not only ache internally,... Read more

I am a retired pastor’s wife of 31 years, and I have seen, experienced, and survived the challenges that come in ministry. With my spouse, I have served two congregations, one that was small and grew large and one that was already large and established. One was in the North and the other in the South. One was in the center of the city and the other in the suburbs, and they both had their own set of challenges. Though... Read more

by Joseph BostonR3 Contributor *First published at the Joseph Boston Blog Renisha McBride’s murder, in that she was shot down like a dog at the hands of another god’s rights, protect my property, gun and home owner fits perfectly with the frontier mentality of America. A mentality that is rooted in the mythology of the American West and sits at the heart of American racism influencing the decisions of private gun owning citizens to law enforcement. Despite the distance of history... Read more

In the south transept of London’s Westminster Abbey—where for a thousand years the kings and queens of England have been enthroned—sits a crowded collection of statues, plaques, and engraved flagstones. Geoffrey Chaucer, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Charles Dickens are buried there; dozens more are commemorated there. On November 22, 2013, 50 years to the day after his death, C. S. Lewis will join them. Poets’ Corner may seem like an odd place for a writer whose poetry is largely overlooked... Read more

No, our eyes did not deceive us on last night’s episode of Scandal.  Daddy Grant did exactly what we thought he did – he raped Mellie!  My emotions ranged from being shocked to being disgusted to being distraught to being angry.  All of that!  Some of us thought she should have fought harder and scratched his eyes out.  Perhaps others thought that Mellie shouldn’t have been sitting so close to a drunken, old man…but for heaven’s sake – he’s her father-in-law. ... Read more

After the Spartanburg Soup Kitchen in Spartanburg, S.C., turned atheists away last spring when non-believers approached the group and offered to help feed the poor, secularists are hitting back with an outreach plan of their own. Upstate Atheists, a local cohort of non-believers, said that they were just trying to help and that the ban truly surprised them. And activist Hemant Mehta, a well-known secular blogger, was so stunned that he quipped that “Jesus would be so pissed off” as a result of the... Read more

It seems that Western society has entered into a “post-religious” age. Attendance at religious services has steadily decreased while those who eschew religious labels are the fastest growing demographic.This shift in our cultural consciousness has been both celebrated and vilified by all sorts of people with various agendas. In popular media, a strict dichotomy between “fundamentalists” and “secularists” is often presented as the driving force behind this cultural shift. The popularity in recent years of books such as “The God... Read more

Under ordinary circumstances, Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch are probably not in the habit of attending the birthday parties of elderly Christian preachers in the North Carolina mountains. But they were both among the hundreds of well-wishers at the party on Thursday marking Billy Graham’s 95th birthday. Graham spent his career leading revivals around the globe, following a long tradition of evangelists who have traveled far and wide to urge sinners to accept Christ. But his birthday guest list shows that... Read more

The disasters are always different and often devastating. But the questions they raise are hauntingly familiar. In the days since Super Typhoon Haiyan swept through the Philippines on Thursday, survivors are frantically searching for lost family members and international aid groups are springing into action. Officials say the death toll may rise to 10,000 in the heavily Catholic country. Meanwhile, many people are asking: How should we make sense of such senseless death and destruction? Was God in the whirlwind itself, as the Bible hints, or present... Read more

In a recent CNN online article on its “Belief” blog, (posted here) a scandal about the Affordable Care Act that is rarely written about was explored: When people talk about the Affordable Care Act, most focus on the troubled launch of its website. But another complication of the law has received less attention: a “coverage gap” that will leave nearly 5 million poor Americans without health care, according to a Kaiser Health Foundation study. The coverage gap was created when 25 states refused... Read more