You are really and truly and completely free. There is no kicker. There is no if, and, or but. You are free. You can do it right or wrong. You can obey or disobey. You can run from Christ or run to Christ. You can choose to become a faithful Christia...
It's a theme born out of the Christian faith rather than a pagan understanding of the universe. Both views agree that we human beings are small, frail, and limited in our ability to battle the forces of the world that seek to destroy us. In response,...
Global citizenship means simply being willing to focus on the game, to notice the world and the people in it. It does not mean noticing your world, but the world. It means being conscious of the fact that you, and your country, are not the center of ...
We must work for the good and commit ourselves to postures of global selflessness, even if we can't figure out all the details surrounding the foreign dictators, food shortages, and fair trade. We're called to lean in, to work as hard as we can towar...
Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he ...
Finally, it is wrong to say that "nothing" is more basic to the identity of the church than suffering. Nothing is more basic to the identity of the institutional church than the preaching of the gospel, the correct administration of the sacraments, a...
Christianity also stands in opposition to intellectual, as well as physical, health. To doubt becomes sin. 'Faith means not wanting to know what it true' a description that strikes me as stunning and quite exact.
Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.
Despite the best efforts of apologists like William Lane Craig, the 'evidence' for Christianity's truth is, in truth, not the kind that science will or should ever admit. We believers mean something different by the word: something that puts faith pe...
A Christian is supposed to be in the world, and yet not of the world--a Both/And as perplexing and demanding as the Either/Or that precedes the life of faith. I'm at once a pure, beautiful, genderless soul, but at the same time a gendered body full o...
Let me say that I consider myself a deep believer in the reality of God. I might define God quite differently from the way some people in the Christian faith would do so, but I do not doubt the reality of that experience.
The Christian faith can never be separated from the soil of sacred events, from the choice made by God, who wanted to speak to us, to become man, to die and rise again, in a particular place and at a particular time.
The little platoon of the black community is the church. Our Christian faith is based on individual freedom from sin and the personal decision to find spiritual liberty that leads to a better life here on Earth and for eternity. On Sundays in America...
Those of us who were brought up as Christians and have lost our faith have retained the sense of sin without the saving belief in redemption. This poisons our thought and so paralyses us in action.
I'm not an evangelist Christian at all. I can't try to convert anybody. It's not in me to do that. But my faith has given me such an appreciation of people and meaningful relationships, and a world view which I didn't have before. And although I will...
When music is allowed to take the place of devotion and prayer, it is a terrible curse. Young people assemble together to sing, and, although professed Christians, frequently dishonor God and their faith by their frivolous conversation and their choi...
While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good t...
Some Christians feel guilty when they are doing something that isn't 'spiritual.' Somehow or another, they feel the need to hurry through the grocery store, dash through the house cleaning, and rush through all the daily aspects of life that seem irr...
Christians can have doubts and they can have questions, and the unhealthy way to deal with that is to keep them inside where they fester and grow and can undermine our faith. The healthy way to deal with it is to talk about it and be honest about it.
All Christians should be able to articulate reasons why they believe what they believe - not just for the sake of our spiritually confused friends, but also so that we ourselves will have a deeper and more confident faith.
In China, where you can be arrested and imprisoned for your faith, getting together with other Christians is a lifeline and you'll risk anything for the privilege. No one attends church in China casually, or for a social advantage - quite the opposit...
