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I have spent most of my Christian life in deep discomfort with Mark 7. I now read it as an early example of the priesthood of all believers.

A few years ago, I spent some time in Williston, North Dakota, to witness the social effects of the oil boom on this small town. While I was there, I went to Concordia Lutheran Church and talked with then-pastor Jay Reinke about his Overnighters program. This was an attempt by Reinke—we can’t quite say it was an attempt by the church—to provide a space where people could sleep. In Williston, I learned that Jesse Moss was working on a documentary about the program. Recently I finally watched that award-winning film, The Overnighters. I have been haunted by it ever since.

Fifty years ago on Thanksgiving Day, a group of friends shared a festive meal in a former Episcopal church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. First constructed in 1829 as St. James Chapel, then enlarged and renamed as Trinity Church in 1866, the white wooden structure, with pointed Gothic windows, steeply pitched roof and tall attached tower displays the Platonic ideal of a New England church, the transcendent anchor of so many Northeastern towns. But its congregation had dwindled over the years. In 1964 it was deconsecrated and sold to Alice and Ray Brock, who put a bedroom in the tower and made it their home.

The proliferation of Inklings books is often prompted by Christian triumphalism. Carol and Philip Zaleski have something more interesting to say.

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

c. 2015 USA Today...

Read the main article on the essence of spiritual memoir....

A memoir becomes explicitly Christian when it derives its literary power from the power of the gospel. It doesn't preach, it shows.

I served two small congregations who wanted a lot of pastoral care. Which was good, because I love people, and I love visiting with them....

Ashley Madison was evil....

Do Trainwreck and Catastrophe herald a resurrection of the rom-com genre? Or merely a grotesque reanimation?

When I was in my mid 20s, I came down with pneumonia bad enough that I had to spend two weeks in the hospital. I felt cut off from everything. I had no idea what things were like on the outside.

Donald Trump’s ongoing narrative about political correctness being “the big problem” in this country may help explain his surprising climb in this week’s presidential polls.

I was at a meeting recently where the pastor of a traditional church was complaining about having to support a new church development for more than three years. So I asked him:...

For some reason or another, lately I've been remembering a particular Christmas, when my sister and I both got toy dump trucks from Santa Claus....

(The Christian Science Monitor) Long before the self-described Islamic State took over the ancient city of Palmyra, archaeologist Khal...

c. 2015 Religion News Service...