Home: A Short Story
Eden lay silent and still on her bed as the shadows watched from every corner of her large drab room. Each stone wall stood tall and featureless. Her latched door seemed to be a world away. And all she could hear was the sound of her breath. As she gripped her thin blanket, Eden closed […]
Interview: “Rick Pidcock – Father Wounds and Andy Stanley’s Critics”
I appeared on the Beached White Male Podcast this week to discuss my articles about Andy Stanley, father wounds, and the war in Israel. Check it out!
Retributive theology opened the door to growth of the prosperity gospel today
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on October 26, 2023. Is it any wonder that the two most influential definitions of the “good news” in a Western society built on capitalism and retribution would be about people getting paid or being punished? In conservative evangelicalism, we see a heavy emphasis on the punishment side. […]
‘The moment we allow our hearts to go numb to the deaths of any children is the moment we shut down our humanity’
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on October 17, 2023. As someone whose ancestors immigrated to the United States from Lebanon, the faces of children suffering in the war in Israel remind me of my own children. The limp body of a 5-year-old girl being carried through the rubble, and the bare, bloody shoulders […]
Here are some ways to listen to Palestinian Christians
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on October 10, 2023. With war raging once again in Israel and Palestine, it seems far more people have opinions to proclaim about it than openness to listening. After the horrific attacks carried out by Hamas in which more than 1,600 people were killed and many more injured, […]
It’s Al Mohler vs. Andy Stanley, part two, with Christianity Today joining the fray
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on October 5, 2023. “Farewell, Andy Stanley.” So seems to be the response from Al Mohler, Christianity Today, and many other evangelicals to Stanley’s defense of North Point Community Church hosting the Unconditional Conference for LGBTQ Christians and their parents. Sam Allberry, writing for Christianity Today, argues Stanley “seriously undermined” a “New Testament sexual ethic.” As […]
Religion’s Power: What Makes It Work (Review)
This article originally appeared at ‘Reading Religion,’ a publication of the American Academy of Religion. In Religion’s Power: What Makes It Work, Robert Wuthnow investigates the power dynamics of religion by studying the mechanisms by which it is practiced. Drawing on his ethnographic and historical experience in sociology and religion, he proposes that religion’s power to […]
What does Shannon Harris think now?
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on October 2, 2023. We first met her nearly two decades ago as a neatly wrapped character named Shannon Hendrickson in a bestselling “Boy Meets Girl” book written by her ex-husband about his theology of courtship after kissing dating goodbye. The character we were told about had led […]