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“I’ll Pray For You”—Powerful or Pointless?

By Christine Wicker

…en, who directed Dallas’ Thanksgiving Square, to give me an example of the best prayer. Jesus had already directed Christians on how to pray, of course. Since, no one in Dallas, Texas, was going to challenge that. I was looking for second best. Elizabeth’s answer changed my entire framework for prayer. She said, “The name of God.” “And then?” I asked. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s all that’s needed.” Elizabeth’s answer made no sense to me until…

Blame Muscular Christianity for Driscoll Fiasco

By Hollis Phelps

…failure. Hence, in order to steer things back in the right direction, the best course of action is one of rebuke and, ultimately, removal, which is the course taken by Acts 29 and now Mars Hill Church—just as his critics have wanted. There’s of course something to that line of thought, but it seems too easy. Specifically, it puts all the focus on Driscoll and ignores the culture that produced him in the first place. Partly through the shrewd use…

“We All We Got”: The Black Church As an Oasis in Baltimore’s Food Deserts

By Kasai Rex

…time to change churches. In Baltimore, symbolic gestures on the pulpit are best complemented by concrete actions in our streets. Their hands forced, some of Baltimore’s black churches have stepped up to meet this demand. Prayer walks have been held by congregations at the same Penn-North intersection where CNN and others incessantly broadcasted images of a torched CVS as if it were a dying human being. In warmer months, New Bethlehem Baptist Churc…

No God but Country: The Religion of John McCain Has Something Important to Tell Us

By Kathryn Lofton

…turn to the “party of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan.” In 2000, McCain separated that same party from the party of the religious right, fatefully remarking: “My friends, I am a Reagan Republican who will defeat Al Gore. Unfortunately, Governor Bush is a Pat Robertson Republican who will lose to Al Gore.” This Reagan Republican has come around on Pat Robertson politics, volunteering to sacrifice once again for his country a piece of himself. At the…

Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Libido

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ationship with another person. I want someone I can love, someone to be my best friend, someone who will dream with me and build a life together. I want someone that I love so much that even if we were unable to have sex for some reason, I would still remain with them in that loving, committed relationship simply because our love goes deeper than the physical act of sex. Certainly there are promiscuous homosexuals—but, given the simple statistics…

Pelosi Attacker’s New Age Spirituality and Belief in QAnon is no Contradiction

By Susannah Crockford

…h gay and left-wing, and that the attack on Pelosi was therefore not perpetrated by anyone on the Right. What’s formed is essentially a conspiracy theory about a conspiracy theorist, and it fuels a form of false equivalence—that ‘both sides’ have a problem with political violence—coupled with the familiar sense of bewilderment that disinformation brings. A sense that we can never really know the truth, so we should probably give up because compreh…

My Childhood Hobby Was Satanic, Or So They Told Me

By Joseph Laycock

…re beset at every turn by demonic forces and evil conspiracies. Despite my best intentions, some people may find these ideas offensive and feel that either their religion or their hobby has been slighted. But I think most readers will find this book interesting and thought provoking. What alternative title would you give the book? For a while my working title was “What The Moral Panic Over Role-Playing Games Says About Religion and Other Imagined…

RDPulpit: You Lost the Debate

By Mary E. Hunt

…alin could get on board. But his righteous claim that marriage is a matter best left to faith groups rang hollow. I hope he knew it. Since when do faith groups decide who gets to share whose Social Security benefits? Was I unconscious when religious organizations were given the authority to assess or lift taxes on joint property held by unmarried people? While I am not a great proponent of more state control over relationships, I think this “every…

O(Pinn)ion: Defending Obama’s Choice

By Anthony B. Pinn

…s. It is through this approach that Obama has the chance of harnessing the best of our shared vision for a better country, and exposing the most harmful dimensions of our beliefs. So… Theological disagreements will persist, as they should. And we will have opportunity to wrestle over these disagreements in that such ability to debate in the public arena is a hallmark of our socio-political culture at its best. But debate will not end disagreement….

Repent, Hillary: Trump’s Evangelical Backers Play the Sin Card

By Hollis Phelps

…er told us how to vote, he gave us all the good common sense to choose the best leaders.” It’s important to emphasize that best doesn’t mean perfect, as Abraham, Moses, and David would remind us. The assumption of God’s providence, however, doesn’t work both ways—that is, it can’t be positively applied to Trump’s presumed opponent, Hillary Clinton. That may seem inconsistent, at least on the surface: if God chooses imperfect people, then can’t God…