Pope Francis takes the Gospel warnings against Satan very literally, seeing the modern tendency to write the devil off as a kind of mythical expression or literary fiction as a kind of victory for evil's influence in the world. Having been trained by Jesuits, I understand where he is coming from.

"Imagine 10,000 men, fathers, sons, brothers and Christ-followers, coming together to worship God and learn more about the life of true adventure He intends for us as men." That's an actual description of one such event. If you're like me, you're very, very nervous to read any further.

Stanley Hauerwas reluctantly defines Christianity and talks about the signs of a baptized life and identity.

Contrary to popular belief, quality is not quantity's illegitimate child. Is it not better to have a congregation of 300 committed Christians than a stadium-sized assembly of 30,000 churchgoers who are there to be served rather than to serve?

On May 5, 1813, Søren Kierkegaard was born in a well-off home in the northern European town of Copenhagen. The Great Dane's works have found their way woven into fiction and philosophy, especially via that of the 20th-century Existentialists like Heidegger and Sartre.

I am a fan of creativity. I stand by a theology that believes: if we are made in the image of our Creator, we are inherently creative ourselves. But even with that said, I've never seen myself as much of a creative type.

His books are selling more than 6 million copies a year, new special editions of "The Screwtape Letters" and "A Grief Observed" are due out this year, and this November, he will join Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot and Chaucer as writers buried or commemorated in Westminster Abbey's Poets Corner. It is, literally, the year of C. S. Lewis.

Christian mansplanation usually involves a guy with a low social IQ whose expertise in the faith obliges him to do things like asking patronizing, predictable rhetorical questions of complete strangers in social media in order to help them become experts in Christianity too.

All of his heroic stories shaped who I am. I never questioned whether or not the miraculous things that occurred in the book of Daniel were really legit. Today, I found out that they were not and sat with my mouth agape and my heart tormented.

If Christians believe that salvation concerns only a state of mind, then what does it matter if we feed the hungry, or take care of animals or practice chastity?

The great show of the new pope is the best example of the theology of glory. The story of Good Friday is the story of the theology of the cross. It is not hard to see where Christianity in the United States is rooted.

We need a seminary student movement that leads the church and the nation into deep engagement that combines service, advocacy and social justice. We seek to create a culture of service whereby everyone is challenged every day to engage in the world.

St. Francis' whole program of the "Gospel Life," was about the renunciation of power that placed barriers between him and others, him and God, and him and the rest of creation. Pope Francis seems to understand the significance of his name.

I believe that underground religion is just beginning. It's neither a gimmick nor a media event. Our culture is changing. We are changing. I feel very positive about this. I am hopeful and energized by great possibilities. Yes, they are wonderful.

This is an essentially incarnational approach to the work of Christian theology, if only because it insists on regarding with equal seriousness the aspirations our faith teaches us to have for the fullest of our humanity, and the realities we are discovering about our essential and universal frailty.

Each year, within every cycle of time, it comes round again: the radical vulnerability of God, willingly chosen out of desire for intimacy with a complicated, hard-headed and desperately tender world.

Common folks within the church now read the Bible for themselves to decipher what is truth. The church was pushed out of the business of having the trademark of truth. The biggest challenge for the church now is postmodernism.

Many of us are shocked every time we hear it, but this type of thinking -- to blame the victim while claiming to read the mind of God -- is not a new thing.

We're so used to it. The religious observers take it for granted and the Winter Solstice crowd keep dreaming of a White one. But for the struggling believer, the challenge is to recover the shock of it all.

I need to believe that God will in fact preserve a refuge for those who live under His mercy by keeping out those who aren't. Yes, I'm talking about heaven and hell.

Regardless of the side of the religious divide you fall on, I propose we join in affirming Hitchens' unencumbered definition of Christianity.

"It is only if we really enter into Advent that we can be surprised, astonished, blown away by the coming of that which so far exceeds what is possible, what is programmable..."

Our theology is both a faith statement and a process of reflection. Our faith teaches us that we can expect to continue to be inspired, to learn from one another, and to seek out that spiritual growth.

Rather than delivering us to the peace and fulfillment of a love that will never end, the Black Friday ritual hollows us out, leaving us only with a hunger that can never, ever be satisfied.

Sorry, free will, but you're out. In order for God to be properly sovereign (all powerful), humanity cannot have so much control over their own destiny.