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A few years after Howard Stephens started providing abortions, he became the target of local anti-abortion protesters. They picketed his home on weekends, distributed leaflets around his neighborhood calling him a murderer, followed his moves around town, and sent hate mail to his son. Perhaps most concerning, the protesters picketed Howard’s church twice.

Within ten minutes on Monday morning, I ran into not one, but two news stories covering the “Christian reaction” to the Supreme Court’s ruling last week affirming the rights of citizens to same-sex marriage. At first I was annoyed by the stories’ characterization of Christianity, but now I’m not so sure.

I often worship and preach in a sanctuary without windows. Renaissance Presbyterian Church is an African-American congregation in Chattanooga, Tennessee....

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Episcopal bishops elected Michael Curry as the first African-American presiding bishop of the 2.5-million-member Episcopal Church....

I like Mark’s frequent mention of how people felt. In this week’s text, Herod is greatly perplexed about John the Baptist.

October 31, 2017 draws near. How should we mark it, especially those of us who care about Christian unity?

(The Christian Science Monitor) Some Palestinian activists reveled in the momentum of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement ...

In the wake of Friday’s landmark 5-4 Supreme Court decision finding a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, two divergent streams of American cultural and religious life are as far apart as ever.

On long backpacking hikes in my twenties, we passed the time going up and down mountains by cataloguing the ways we were struggling....

When I first heard they forgave him, I flinched. Why should they have to do that? So quickly?...

The setup sounds like a medieval soap opera. But Robyn Cadwallader knows far too much about the 13th century to write an anachronistic romance.

When I was a young seminarian, I was fascinated with Grace Lee Boggs’ life and work....

No one from the outside can fully grasp the inner workings of any marriage. Even those inside sometimes find themselves lonely and strangers.

I ran into an older friend of mine at the gym the other day. I hadn’t seen him in a little while. He recently had some significant health problems, but is now well on his way to recovery....

The Confederate battle flag will not fly much longer on the grounds of the South Carolina state Capitol, where it has flown since it was dislodged from the Capitol itself 15 years ago. The state’s political establishment wants it gone, and doubtless it soon will be. What is to be hoped is that its removal signals the end of the mythical republic for which it stands.

Not everything urgent is important. The difficulty is distinguishing between the two. In ministry, people's pressing needs seldom come before us in neat, conveniently timed packages. Instead, the minister is bombarded with legitimate requests and pleas from every side.

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