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As she prepared for her mission—scaling the 30-foot flagpole outside the South Carolina statehouse to bring down the Confederate flag—Bree Newsome reread the biblical story of David and Goliath....

I don’t want to identify with David, with this king who knows no limits. But why, pray God, does his arrogance feel so familiar?

As I sat in a circle of church planters discussing ministry, a stream of confession emerged: "I've made a lot of mistakes."

(RNS) A well-intentioned argument is developing among some Westerners, urging the evacuation of Christians from the Middle East. These Westerners reason that because no one will defend the Middle Eastern Christians, they should be resettled elsewhere. Such an approach is naive at best, and complicit at worst, accomplishing the religious cleansing desired by ISIS.

A few years ago a student was referred to me, the college chaplain, because he was getting in a bit of trouble. He was drinking and partying too much and making some poor decisions. This behavior was out of character for this student and his professors thought it had something to do with the fact that his mother was dying of cancer. When we sat down together in my office, the first thing this young man wanted to tell me was that he was not very “religious.”

Some churches have well-developed processes of assessment, support, and goal setting. Others have no review mechanism whatsoever.

Read the main article on the importance of pastoral evaluations....

Our arrest happened much faster than we anticipated. As we unfurled our banner based on the “unjust scales” of Amos 8, the police moved in. We had gathered at a magnificent skyscraper in Chicago’s financial district for a meeting with Ken Griffin, Illinois’s richest citizen and top financial contributor to Governor Bruce Rauner.

I was swimming along just fine, regularly going for a mile or more, several times a week. I felt strong and sleeker than usual. Then, one day, I just didn’t feel like it and had to argue myself into going to the pool.

 There is a prevalent idea in culture that pastors are money-grubbers. I think I have met one of those. Maybe. But, for the most part, we hate asking for money. The majority of church budgets go to salaries, and we feel bad about that, even if we make less than a third of the average person in our congregation. So we can get embarrassed during stewardship time.

Perhaps there is a connection we shouldn't miss between David's dancing with all his might--uninhibited, unclad, unaware of disapproval--and the generosity with which he blesses and distributes food to all the people. Both are extravagant gestures that turn love into action, withholding nothing.

Once a month, on Monday evenings, I was worshiping at a new service at my husband's church. There is no sermon at this worship service....

E. E. Cummings and James Laughlin didn’t write with metaphysical or philosophical ambition. But that doesn’t mean their poetry doesn’t matter.

(The Christian Science Monitor) A group of Evangelical Christians in Brazil launched a new social network last month called FaceGlória...

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

c. 2015 Religion News Service (RNS) The Christian conference circuit has special appeal to women....

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

Seventh-day Adventists voted 1,381 to 977 at their 60th General Conference Session in San Antonio not to allow their regional church bodies to ordain women pastors....

People do not float through life in the bubble that is their skin. We are grounded, dependent beings that live through the lives and deaths of others.

Take the question in isolation—given that we’re going to identify our church’s allegiances with these two flags, which one should be higher?—and I absolutely agree with Rit Varriale that it should be the Christian one. But the question didn't arise in isolation, of course.