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Here in Minnesota, Lent is an almost unbearably slow wait.

Can someone be called and not know it?

“We don’t take sin seriously enough.” “We have lost the concept of sin.” Sooner or later someone always says something along those lines when talking about grace, don’t they? I mean, sometimes it’s me. In a certain sense we can’t talk about grace without talking about sin.

In 1920, not long after the Great War, a little-known agitator gave a speech in Munich on the topic, "Why Are We Anti-Semites?" The speaker concluded that it was important to prevent Germany “from suffering a death by crucifixion." Of course this agitator became quite well known—it was Adolf Hitler—and we know what his antisemitism led to.

c. 2014 Religion News Service...

c. 2014 USA Today...

Turning part of the message over to church members is the concept behind a new worship model called WikiWorship—wiki as in Wikipedia....

William McElvaney, a retired Dallas pastor and former seminary president, defied United Methodist strictures against presiding over a same-sex marriage ceremony on March 1 but was uncertain whether...

The best outcome of the tensions in Ukraine would allow the country to develop its unique role as a bridge between languages and cultures.

Several months ago, I was invited by a journal to reflect on the meaning of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech 50 years later. Two months after that article was published, I was asked to give a brief talk on the civil rights movement and how it impacted me as its events unfolded. In both cases, I was asked to discuss the divisiveness that was addressed in the civil rights movement—and I could not help but reflect upon the divisiveness that bedevils much of American social and political life today.

Wow. Here's a commercial aimed at folks who think a month-long vacation sounds horrible, especially if it means suffering the indignity of driving a Honda or not living in a McMansion. In other words, it's aimed at lots of Americans.

I am in a phase of radical decluttering. The phrase “spring cleaning” comes to mind, but it’s a bit too Disneyish and doe-eyed to describe the full-scale assault currently underway against old toys, outgrown clothes, and random piles of crap inside my house. Until this is finished, I can’t relax.

Flannery O’Connor never wrote just for herself, God, and an elite group of peers. She was eager for an audience with ears to hear about grace.

Betsy had always worked across interfaith lines. She didn’t expect there would be any problems with her message in the congregation.

Transformation for Betsy, her congregants, and others will likely occur through encounters with members of the Muslim community. As a leader, Betsy can cultivate these encounters.

The main characters personify different attitudes toward life. Each of them exhibits the unique charm of their perspective, allowing it to grow so that it becomes a part of us. We nod in understanding, if not consent, even as their defects of character become startling.

"If your belief on SSM is based on a learned disgust at the thought of a gay person, the moment a gay person, any gay person, ceases to disgust you, ...

Miller, an internist, has coronary heart disease....

c. 2014 Religion News Service...

c. 2014 Religion News Service...