Christian Theology

When those who have so little do their faith by providing for those who have even less; those of us privileged by class should be profoundly humbled. It is the privileged who see the oppressed and do nothing that are the ones that do not know God.

Santorum has not declared that Obama is a Muslim. He has not questioned directly Obama's Christianity. Rather, he calls into question Obama's theology, as if this were a contest for an endowed chair at a seminary and not for our highest constitutional office.

My Christian sisters and brothers, let us revive the struggle. This fabulous sport can be our guide as we strive this Advent season, expectantly awaiting the New Born King.

Though Christian financial "guru" Dave Ramsey claims not to understand Occupy Wall Street, he does know why protesters want to raise taxes on the wealthy: We are sinners. "At the core of this demand," he says, "is envy."

When God speaks, often it is outside of the noble confines of the stained-glass edifice. This is what Mark is attempting to tell us: God's movement is often abrupt and unsettling.

I recently enjoyed a coffeehouse get-together with Gareth Higgins, founder of the Wild Goose Festival. He had been kind enough to ask to meet with me by way of extending to me an invitation to speak at Wild Goose 2012.

Although fundamentalist and dogmatic approaches to religion may be more vocal in their reaction to the emerging church, this does not necessarily mean that they are gaining popular momentum.

Do Christians have moral obligations to animate creation? Many say no, citing the mandate to "have dominion" over all living things. But is the language of Genesis so devoid of ambiguity?

That's the image of Mom that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. She was a woman who bore up through terrible pain, who was damaged by that pain and lived through it.

Why would God send Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb of God, dying for the sins of the world, instead of just destroying sin, or perhaps offering grace and forgiveness to the very ones created by God?

I entertained the illusion that I was free of my grandfather altogether - free of his religion, free of his politics, free of his culture, free of his belief in God, and free, almost, of my family.

We are smothering God. And our church. We're engaged in an unholy combination of implicit theocide and communal suicide.

It is time to contend with our complicity in the enduring legacy of lynching in the contemporary practice of the death penalty. It contradicts our claims of being Christian and democratic.

I want to suggest that the country club image for the Christian faith, its salvation culture, no matter how historic and vital to the Christian church's identity, inadequately frames what might be called its true "gospel culture."

By Daniel Burke Religion News Service (RNS) In recent weeks, an arcane and scary-sounding religious term has crept into the lexicon of the 2012 ca...

Why should anyone be dismayed that all the evidence ever collected points to the implausibility that two persons named Adam and Eve once lived in a paradisiacal garden and gave birth to all humanity?

By Kim Lawton Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (RNS) For millennia, people have been trying to imagine what happens after death. I...

Since story is such a foundational part of how we as humans make sense of our lives, it makes sense that our sacred texts would make use of story.

I carried this question with me through college, seminary and 20 years as a pastor. But I never publicly admitted to having doubts or questions.

While the church has often viewed artists with suspicion (and visa versa), there is a lot that we can learn from the artist's perspective that can enrich, expand and challenge how we approach faith.

At the age of 39, after my Gram's funeral, I took my grandmother into my heart. What would my life be like if I showed other people the same unconditional love she showed me?

As someone raised evangelical, I realize anti-evolutionists believe they are defending the Christian tradition. But as a seminary graduate now training to be a medical scientist, I can say that, in reality, they've abandoned it.

Please keep in mind that I do not think that everyone need be one, but that there is a growing number of people who yearn for a drastically different approach to being the Body of Christ.

What happened at Pentecost runs much deeper than peaking in a charismatic "tongues-of-fire" prayer language. It was a divine moment of reconciliation among people.

Christians will look back in time on Pentecost. But they'll also need to be looking at the present, dreaming with their eyes open and daring to consider where God may be found today.