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Yet, the questions I want to raise are these: what does it mean that the popularity of predominately white church plants in inner cities has grown precisely as gentrification has spiked? What does it mean that many have been inspired to seek the welfare of cities precisely as a growing number of people have been economically displaced from these cities? The theologies that romanticize this shift into the city need to be seriously scrutinized alongside the material realities.

One significant difference between Eastern and Western perspectives is how we treat the elderly. Although modern society is eroding some of our Chinese traditional values, in general, there is still more respect and honor for the elderly than our Western counterparts. I hope this is an instance where the global church in the North can allow other cultures to speak prophetically into its faith community. 

Smith traces the path of popular religious books—In His Steps, Ben-Hur, The Late Great Planet Earth, Left Behind—from the late 19th century to the present....

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

c. 2015 Religion News Service CANTERBURY, England (RNS) Christian traditionalists may not like it, but all-day Sunday shopping may soon be possible in Britain....

I know what Jesus is doing in this story; I have three small children. He's dawdling.

I have given my father many presents. The small bottle of fragrant bath essence I gave him last Christmas may be the most important one.

Last month, The Atlantic published an online piece by staff writer Megan Garber, “How Comedians Became Public Intellectuals.” The article documented how comedy today in both its standup and situational genres is expanding beyond its minutiae focus of the 1990s in favor of a harder-hitting, message-based style evident in the work of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Amy Schumer.

Most nights, my bedtime prayer with our two oldest boys begins like this: Be still and know that I am God.

The feast  of resources on discipleship, faith and work, and theologies of vocation continues to grow. Doug Koskela provides another serving, this one intended for young adults.

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

“Many were coming and going, and they had no leisure, even to eat.” I think of the many lunches spent at my computer with a sandwich.

There is much that we hope for, we who have cast our lot with Jesus of Nazareth. We hope for mercy, forgiveness, new life, eternal life. We hope for the promise of a new heart that—against  all odds!—beats in sync with our Maker, as promised by the prophet Ezekiel. We hope for the relief from pain, for relational wholeness, for freedom from the burden of crippling doubts and unmanageable burdens. We hope for heaven, whatever that might mean.

For no reason I can remember, I put the ’90s classic Four Weddings and a Funeral on my Netflix queue and re-watched it recently. The scene etched in my mind all these years was that of the funeral. John Hannah, with his beautiful Scottish accent, reads “Funeral Blues” by W. H. Auden. What the clip leaves off is the funeral officiant, presumably an Anglican priest, introducing the beloved partner of the man in the coffin as “his closest friend.”

In many books, the Jim Crow era is mediated through the sensibilities of white people. Jim Auchmutey shrewdly avoids this.

The 2-million-member Epis­copal Church voted overwhelmingly on July 1 to let gay and lesbian couples marry in the church’s religious ceremonies, reinforcing its support for same-sex nuptials days a...

An Israeli family experienced the surprise of a lifetime when, during a home renovation, workers discovered a 2,000-year-old Jewish ritual bath, called a mikvah....