The Left Behind series is not significant for its literary merits, which are few, but because it is the latest example of "end-time" eschatology, the belief that we are living out the final pages of history. It may seem like trivial pulp to sophisticated readers, but...
If we really believe what we say, that our faith should inform the whole of our lives, then we cannot leave our values and beliefs at the door when it comes to public discourse. While the separation of church and state is critically important to the freedoms we...
…America finally came to terms with its birth defect, finally came to terms with the contradiction…that when the Founding Fathers said, “We, the people,” they didn’t mean any of us. from a speech honoring childhood friend, Denise McNair, and three other girls killed...
About fifteen of us children were outside my aunt Seneva’s house, playing in her dirt yard. The sky began clouding over, the wind started picking up, lightning flashed far off in the distance, and suddenly I wasn’t thinking about playing anymore; I was terrified… Aunt...
Many American churchgoers seem to expect to use the MIND in worship, but only during the sermon. It’s at that point that typical pew-occupiers open their textbook (the Bible), get their pencils ready (to take notes), and put their brains in gear. You can almost sense...
I think we are experiencing a divine reckoning in America. I don’t think the reckoning is over our having simply sinned… I think it’s over the fact that we have used God and the Bible to do it.
The temptations to misread the Bible on our own behalf and to domesticate it for our own purposes are many and dangerous, and in America, devoted as we are to the Bible, we have tried them all. Bibliolatry, the worship of the Bible and the making of it an object of...
We desperately need to explore how much of our understanding of the Gospel is American and how much is biblical.
I am convinced that a community-called-beloved is possible. This is an admittedly fragile possibility, but it is not a utopian dream. I believe that people of good will harbor a persistent hope that our planet can be a place of belonging for all its inhabitants. To...