• Christianity,  Culture

    A Year of Living Gay

    We’ve seen Rachel Held Evans’ A Year of Biblical Womanhood and Ed Dobson’s The Year of Living Like Jesus, and now there a new “year of…” hitting the shelves. For one year, Timothy Kurek decided to live as a gay person. Kurek comes from an evangelical background, but he turned his life upside down in order to produce his new book The Cross in the Closet. He did everything that a person would need to do in order to make himself appear to be gay. He had to “come out of the closet” to his family and friends. Which means that he lied to them for a year. He took…

  • Christianity

    When It Costs To Be Complementarian

    World magazine has a report about Daniel Harman, the leader of the University of Louisville chapter of Cru (formerly known as Campus Crusade). The long and short of it is this. Cru recently relieved Daniel of his duties because of his complementarian approach to campus ministry. He has been with Cru for 11 years, 8 of which were on the mission field in Eastern Europe. Since 2009, he’s been directing the ministry on UofL’s campus. His complementarian views were no problem overseas, but they became more of an issue since he returned to America. It all came to a head recently when the leadership of Cru learned that he was…

  • Christianity

    Rick Warren Talks about Gay Marriage with Piers Morgan

    Everyone knows at this point that if you are a Christian and you’re on Piers Morgan’s show, he going to ask you about homosexuality (remember Kirk Cameron?). That was certainly the case with Rick Warren’s appearance on the program earlier this week (see below). In this encounter, Morgan asks Warren if he believes gay people are born gay. Warren says that the verdict is still out on that question. Warren also argues that our moral assessment of homosexuality is not altered even if they are born that way. In other words, it’s a moot point in terms of determining the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality.

  • Christianity,  Music

    7,000 Men Singing Praises around a Piano

    The worship sessions from the 2010 and 2012 Together for the Gospel conferences have just been released on an album. Bob Kauflin is the worship leader, and this recording really fantastic. There are sixteen songs in all for only $8.99. To get a feel for what 7,000 men singing around a piano sound like, watch the video below. Download the album here.

  • Christianity,  Music

    Grieving with Hope at Christmas

    I love Steven Curtis Chapman’s music. His 1995 Christmas album is a staple at our house every year. Many of these songs are more than nostalgia to me. They are worship. Just this past Sunday as I was driving to church, my eyes were welling-up once again as I sang for the first time this year “Our God Is with Us”. I really love this music. Now, nearly 20 years later Chapman has released a new Christmas album titled “Joy”. Chapman has lived a lifetime since that first Christmas album, and it shows in the new one. One song in particular is addressed to those who are grieving at Christmastime.…

  • Christianity

    Tom Wright on Anglican Vote Rejecting Female Bishops

    Tom Wright has an op-ed in The Times of London today commenting on the Anglican decision not to ordain women as bishops. Wright’s article is a response in large part to Prime Minister David Cameron’s admonition to the church to “get with the program.” Wright thinks Cameron oversteps his bounds in telling the church what it ought to do. Perhaps I’m not the only one who would note the irony of an Anglican church leader complaining about the state chiming-in on church matters. But that is not what I am mainly concerned about here.

  • Christianity

    When Jesus hates thanksgiving…

    The Christian’s duty to give thanks is pretty clear in scripture. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, “In everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” This is one aspect of God’s will that is not secret or hidden. It’s not something that we have to pray about. We already know what it is. Giving thanks in every circumstance is the normative ethic for all Christians. Nevertheless, there is at least one place in scripture in which Jesus warned against giving thanks. From Luke 18:9-14:

  • Christianity,  Politics

    Who Is Hobby Lobby?

    We all heard the news earlier this week about the death of religious freedom at Hobby Lobby. Even though the public is becoming aware that the owners David and Barbara Green are Christians, Americans still need to know more about these good people and what they stand for. To this end, Ben Domenech writes:

  • Christianity,  Politics

    Conversation with Sarah Posner

    Sarah Posner from Religion Dispatches was very kind to invite me on to her bloggingheads program yesterday (see below). We talked for about 30 minutes about evangelical political engagement in the aftermath of the presidential election. For those of you who watch the video, that’s not the shekinah beaming off my face. I just set myself up in bad lighting in my basement. Nevertheless, I do look like a luminous being, although I am no Jedi.