I don’t know what to call this natural disaster we’ve come through—The Great Storm? The South Carolina Flood? The Deluge of 2015? But whatever name finally sticks, few of us will forget this past weekend. We’ll remember the sight of washed out bridges and streets so filled with rushing water that they look like rivers. Car tops barely visible above rising waters and helpless figures standing in the gloom watching their homes wash away. Dams bursting. The sound of rain never letting up. State and local officials haven’t yet had time to start totaling up the cost. They’re too busy trying to save lives and restore utilities. But […]
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In 1925 John Scopes, a high school biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee was accused of teaching evolution to his class in violation of state law. America at the time was just beginning to feel the rub between her religious underpinnings and modern science, so the Scopes Monkey Trial—as it was quickly called—became a matter of national interest. The trial gathered steam when the well-known attorney Clarence Darrow took on the case for the defense and presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan agreed to speak for the state. That Darrow was as famous an agnostic as Bryan was a conservative Christian brought things to a level of notoriety and celebrity rarely […]
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Kim Davis never thought her life would turn in this direction. The fifty-year-old mother of two had been long-time deputy clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky when last year she decided to run for the office of clerk. She was elected and assumed her new position earlier this year. Then all heck broke loose. When the United States Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in June Davis was faced with a crisis of conscience. As a conservative and devout Christian she couldn’t condone the Supreme Court’s decision. On the other hand, her responsibility as county clerk was to issue marriage licenses, a responsibility that now included same-sex couples. Davis then made the decision that thrust her […]
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Rod Dreher, writing in “The American Conservative” yesterday, reflects on an older book that will serve as a valuable resource for all of us trying to figure out where and how to lead the church in this modern America of cultural indifference, Christian persecution, Planned Parenthood’s wanton slaughter of innocents, and immorality on a scale never before seen in our nation (the Ashley Madison hack and subsequent release of its membership revealed 32 million names in its database seeking adulterous relationships—unless I’m worse at math than I realize, that number represent 10% of America’s population!) The book Dreher references is “Resident Aliens” by Duke University professors, Stanley Hauerwas and […]
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Churches and their leaders continue to wrestle with the implications of the United States Supreme Court’s June 26 decision legalizing same sex marriage. The trajectory of where this thing is going is perfectly clear to anyone paying attention—there’s going to be a steep price for faithful congregations. Churches that refuse to abide by the state’s new law likely will lose their tax exempt status and almost certainly their property tax exemption in the next few years. Beyond that, any public criticism of homosexual behavior in general and same sex marriage in particular soon will result in accusations of bigotry and hate speech. That’s not the raving of a Baptist preacher […]
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Early Sunday morning on September 15, 1963 four members of the Ku Klux Klan planted fifteen sticks of dynamite beneath the front steps of Birmingham Alabama’s 16th Street Baptist Church, a prominent African-American congregation active in the growing Civil Rights movement. The bomb detonated at 10:30AM, killing four children as they changed into their choir robes for the morning service. Witnesses later said the explosion propelled the girls’ bodies through the air “like rag dolls.” Their names haven’t been forgotten: Addie Mae Collins, 14; Carol Denise McNair, 11; Carole Robertson, 14; and Cynthia Wesley, 14. Their deaths seared America’s conscience, and ten months later President Lyndon Johnson signed into law […]
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Mission trips are a growing phenomenon in many evangelical churches, and for good reaon. The reason is to take the gospel to the world. Every congregation has that responsibility and those that accept it move to a new level of vision and purpose. But there’s another dimension to mission trips that’s less visible. When you put people together on a small team for a week or so and interrupt their normal routines of life by sending them to the front lines of ministry in an unfamiliar country, many of them discover a new passion for the gospel. It’s a common experience for mission trips to serve as the catalyst for […]
Read MoreAnyone who’s travelled in a Muslim country will always remember the first time they heard the call to prayer. I’m sure my team will never forget the sound ringing through the city five times every day. From the minarets that surround us on every side, the “Muezzim” or singer, crys out in Arabic, “God is great. There is no god but Allah and Muhammed is his messenger.” Few things are as indicative of the differences between the Muslim and Western worlds as the Call to Prayer. It’s a startling sign–alien and threatening to American ears–that we’re a long way from home. But it’s not the only reminder. There are also […]
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Public transportation is the best way of getting around in this massive, sprawling city since cars choke the expressways at all hours of the day and night. The subway system is modern, clean and efficient; we use it every time we can. Busses are convenient and comfortable. Ferries churn back and forth on the sparkling sea, offering fast access and breathtaking scenery to locations in and around the city. People also walk everywhere. There’s rarely a time when the streets aren’t packed with students going to school, workers hurrying to their jobs, wives shopping for their families, or seniors meandering from one tea shop to another. But the best known–if […]
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I’m sitting in an airport with a group of five young men waiting for a flight that’s an hour late that will cause us to miss a connecting flight in another city that will in turn cause us to miss a third and final flight. The end result will be that we’ll get to our final destination a few hours later than we planned. That’s how international travel works and none of us is surprised. We’re on our way to a major city in Central Asia where we’ll spend the next week doing mission work among some of the most anti-Christian people on earth. Our purpose is to build relationships […]
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