Today is the birthday of Mark Twain, a day to be celebrated with jokes, stories and hallowed irreverence. Around here we like to mark the occasion by revisiting the greatest religious conversion narrative in American literature, a scene from Huckleberry Finn. Read more
"You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan." Read more
I have a Google news alert in my RSS feed for the word "Satanic." You never know what might pop up from that. Read more
In the Netherlands, the police are not allowed to enter a church during worship services -- not even to arrest refugees they're trying to deport. So one church is providing sanctuary to asylum-seekers by conducting a worship service that has continued for nearly three weeks. Cornelius ten Boom would approve. Read more
ICE agents emulate the tactics of slave-catchers from the 1850s, leading some North Carolina clergy to borrow the tactics of the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue. Now, as then, the law is on the side of the kidnappers. Read more
The authors don't see anything strange or embarrassing in Rayford's swooping in to grab the last spot while others are forced to circle the block. Like Rayford himself, they seem oblivious to his behavior. That Guy never realizes he's That Guy. Read more
The willingness of so many white American Christians to bear false witness against these neighbors -- to seek out, to desire, and to accept such false witness, and then to eagerly pass it on -- says a great deal about the substance and quality and meaning of their purported faith. Read more
The Southern Strategy, the Bible professor behind a racist slimeball political attack, and a local DA who seems to idolize Frank Rizzo. (Plus more from Fang Fang and from the Apostle Paul -- at the same time.) Read more
That micromaniacal focus on the letter of the law, Paul says, causes them to miss the "greater glory," making them "incompetent" for the new thing the gospel is perpetually bringing about -- a ministry "not of letter, but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." Read more
This dispute in Galatians 2 precisely parallels the current dispute within what we now call the "church" over the unqualified welcome and full equality of LGBT+ Christians. Read more
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