Confessions of an Advent Extremist: A Q&A with Sybil MacBeth

Last updated on: November 4, 2014 at 1:57 pm By Deborah Arca

Even as we throw out the empty candy wrappers and put away the costumes from Halloween, the season of Advent looms just around the corner. Starting the last Sunday of November, Advent announces the beginning of the Christmas season in the Christian liturgical calendar. In our hyper-consumer culture however, the season of Advent often gets overlooked –trampled, rather, by the mad dash of Santa Claus and his marketing reindeer. Enter author and retreat leader Sybil MacBeth with a new book, The Season of... Read more

Freedom and Resolve: A Q&A with Spiritual Teacher Gangaji

Last updated on: November 3, 2014 at 4:08 pm By Guest Contributor

“It is essential to surrender our ideas of who we are to discover the truth of who we are. It is essential to surrender to the unknown, radiant truth of incomprehensible being. Then we know somehow what we have always known though it has been unacknowledged until that moment.” — Gangaji, author of Freedom & Resolve This month at the Patheos Book Club, we’re talking about the new book by spiritual teacher and author Gangaji, Freedom and Resolve: Finding Your... Read more

Evangelicals and Sex: A Q&A with Amy DeRogatis

Last updated on: November 3, 2014 at 3:40 pm By Guest Contributor

“The biggest misconception is that evangelicals are anti-sex. They are not. Contrary to popular stereotypes that characterize conservative Christians as prudes, since the 1960s evangelicals have been engaged in an enterprise to claim and affirm the joys of sex for married born-again Christians.” — Amy DeRogatis, author, Saving Sex: Sexuality and Salvation in American Evangelicalism This month at the Patheos Book Club, we’re talking about the new book Saving Sex: Sexuality and Salvation in American Evangelicalism by Amy DeRogatis. DeRogatis is an... Read more

Is Mormonism Congruent with Christianity?

Last updated on: November 3, 2014 at 3:20 pm By Guest Contributor

By Terryl Givens Mormonism’s status as a Christian faith, and its exact relationship to Christianity, continue to be subjects of long-standing dispute. As prominent scholar Sydney Ahlstrom remarked of Mormonism in his celebrated Religious History of the American People, “One cannot even be sure if the object of our consideration is a sect, a mystery cult, a new religion, a church, a people, a nation, or an American subculture.” The Catholic and mainline Protestant churches alike have declared in recent... Read more

A Balm for the Anxious Soul: A Review of Amy Simpson’s “Anxious”

Last updated on: October 28, 2014 at 2:38 pm By David Swartz

I served as a hospital chaplain many moons ago visiting all the patients with no church affiliation. One guy and I became pretty good friends since he’d been in for so long recovering from a hip replacement. On one particular visit, he told me that his ankle was what really was hurting him that day. He showed me how discolored, swollen and angry it looked. A doctor came in on rounds and said, “Let’s see how you’re doing.” He grabbed the sore... Read more

Finding Grace and Hope in the Midst of Anxiety: Reflections on “Anxious”

Last updated on: October 27, 2014 at 3:33 pm By Elizabeth Nordquist

Reflections on Anxious: Choosing Faith in a World of Worry, by Amy Simpson Read more on this book in the Patheos Book Club here. I am grateful to Amy Simpson for naming a pervasive thread in the consciousness of so many in the 21st Century—the worry that attends so much of our musing, deciding and imagining. She writes from a place of thorough Biblical study and deep life experience, giving her voice credibility and authenticity. She defines worry as a... Read more

An Invitation to Taste and See this Advent Season

Last updated on: October 22, 2014 at 5:45 pm By Elizabeth Nordquist

The sacred anticipation of Advent and the joy of Christmastide often seem dimmed and fraught for leaders in the Church because they can’t imagine a new way to come at those familiar stories and themes. In her new book, Taste & See: Experiencing the Stories of Advent and Christmas, spiritual director Jan Johnson offers a fresh lens with which to study, reflect and live into the narratives of the principle characters in the Matthew and Luke stories that are part... Read more

Chuck Swindoll’s Abraham: A Book Review

Last updated on: October 22, 2014 at 12:05 pm By David Swartz

Abraham. A major figure in three of the world’s major faiths, this quite ordinary man from the Early Bronze Age (circa 2000 BC) touches us (including many who don’t know him) in many unexpected ways. His life doesn’t stand as removed from us as we think. Many outside the West (or First World) live very similarly to the life he played out. Second, Abraham was simply human and humanness remains constant in spite of advances in civilization. Third, and most... Read more

Advent as Sensation and Immersion: A Review of “Taste & See”

Last updated on: October 20, 2014 at 3:04 pm By Amber Stamper

Advent devotionals are among my absolutely most favorite things in the world. Each year, as the crisp breezes of fall give way to the sharper chills of winter, I begin my search. For weeks, I browse the shelves of local bookstores, traipse the digital trails of Google and Amazon, and ask friends for recommendations. Last year, I settled on Watch for the Light, a delightful and thought-provoking collection of readings by various theologians and artists. The year before, it was... Read more

Three Tips for Facing the Future without Worry

Last updated on: October 21, 2014 at 10:40 am By Deborah Arca

By Amy Simpson Author, Anxious: Choosing Faith in a World of Worry I can relate to sixteenth-century French writer Michel de Montaigne, who wrote, “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.” I’ll bet you can relate too. We all worry about the future. And most of us are willing to admit that we sometimes lie awake at night, suffering through possibilities that never become reality. We also suffer from realities that for all our... Read more