Engaging Well: Staying Faithful in Faithless Times

Many years ago, the apostle Paul confronted a Christless culture in Athens, Greece. Yet his challenge on that day is identical to the challenge we face in our culture. How do we remain faithful in faithless times? How can we connect with culture without becoming trapped or ruined by the culture?

Preaching Points: The Preaching Life

As Annie Dillard has beckoned us to consider The Writing Life so Barbara Brown Taylor has set forth the challenge to preachers to consider The Preaching Life. I only take up the matter because I always have believed we who preach walk past Sunday's need and never see it. If we were more alert, would the paragraphs of next Sunday's sermon begin to stack themselves all around the text we wanted to preach?

Back Page Pulpit: What’s on Your Mind?

I never knew I had so many friends until I enrolled in Facebook. In case you've been living under a rock (like the guy in that AFLAC commercial), you've heard about the phenomenon that is Facebook, now with more than 500 million registered participants. They even made a movie about it-The Social Network-which apparently consisted of one smart Harvard kid taking an idea from some other smart Harvard kids and turning it into a bazillionjillion dollars.

Proper 9: The Christian’s Inner Conflict

In 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a famous book titled The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The book chronicles the life of Dr. Jekyll, who believes good and evil exist in everyone. Through personal experimentation, however, Dr. Jekyll discovers his evil side-Mr. Hyde. He develops a potion that attempts to separate his good side from his darker impulses, allowing him to be transformed into a creature free of moral conscience.

The Wisdom of Folly

Most of us are in a search for wisdom, for understanding. We want to know -- we have a hunger for knowledge. We read, we explore, because we want to know; and we admire those who have achieved a certain level of knowledge and wisdom; we celebrate those who are wise.

The Great Theologians

The Great Theologians: A Brief Guide (IVP Academic) by Gerald McDermott is a useful and readable guide to the key thinkers who helped shape the way the church thinks about Christian theology.

I Believe I’ll Testify

Much of the greatest preaching in America takes place Sunday by Sunday in African-American churches. In his new book I Believe I'll Testify: The Art of African-American Preaching (Westminster John Knox), Cleophus J. LaRue explores those distinctive characteristics that make black preaching such a powerful rhetorical tool into the 21st century.