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(The Christian Science Monitor) Signs are beginning to emerge suggesting that role of religion in the Bible Belt may be declining, at ...

Allen Lutes wipes his brow as he prepares another plate of food. The culinary school–trained chef is serving grilled chicken, fresh vegetables, and rice pilaf....

Carolyn Winfrey Gillette creates “sung prayers” for a problem that seems difficult to solve while also spurring people to end gun violence....

A preacher's nightmare is to be in front of an eager congregation and realize your notes are missing. No wonder one of my favorite Bible stories is about a clergyperson who's rendered speechless.

The humanitarian plight of Syrian refugees and the terrorist threat of ISIS seem likely to dominate the cable news channels for weeks to come. But it’s unclear whether Christian preachers will continue to discuss these issues now that the season of Advent has arrived.  On the surface there is little connection between ISIS’s campaign of terror and a season that invites us to prepare for the return of Christ. 

I caught myself getting overwhelmed one night. I’d been distracting myself from my stress all day long—running from meeting to meeting, answering emails, sending e-mails, moving from one uncompleted task on my desk to the next. When I finally got home and needed to focus on my children, though, I no longer had the energy to distract myself. So the stress I had successfully avoided all day slowly began to unravel itself and take over. The power of emotion is extraordinary.

Scott Dannemiller narrates his family's year of simpler living. By the end, he acknowledges that "stuff" is not bad.

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

c. 2015 Religion News Service (RNS) Change is coming to American megachurches—those behemoths for believers that now dot the religious landscape....

(The Christian Science Monitor) Al-Qaeda has fallen to second place for popularity in the United States, as the self-described Islamic...

Aid organizations are overwhelmed by the scale of the current mass migration from the Middle East. So the work has fallen on other volunteers.

As religious violence continues to make headlines, it is tempting for both the media and its audience to lump devout worshipers into the same camp as violent extremists. It is also tempting for people of one faith to regard members of other religious groups as the ones most likely to commit heinous crimes in the name of religion.

Though most of the American churches in the past failed to be a people that manifested the kingdom of God in society during racialized chattel slavery, as well as during Jim Crow white supremacy, we have the opportunity to repent and live into a new and more Jesus-shaped story, being a people that do what God requires; doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly before our God. (Micah 6:8)

Amy Kittelstrom examines the overlapping ideas, personalities, and relationships of seven figures associated with what she calls the American Reformation.

Brian McLaren, Sara Miles, Chris Wiman, and others make their selections.

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

The tension between the joy of the first three readings and the judgment of the Baptizer’s proclamation is theologically instructive. It presses us to hold the two together.

The tension between the joy of the first three readings and the judgment of the Baptizer’s proclamation is theologically instructive. It presses us to hold the two together.

Religious people have been their own worst enemies in recent weeks.  First came a study from the journal Current Biology showing that children from religious families are less generous and more punitive than their peers, and that the more exposure to religion they received, the worse they behaved.  

Every year at least one breakable item in my kitchen meets its end. The cause of death is usually a fall to the kitchen floor, and I am usually the perpetrator. One morning recently, before leaving the house to teach a yoga class, my elbow grazed the handle of a glass mug. So began its descent to a crash.