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c. 2015 Religion News Service...

Gardner C. Taylor, widely considered the dean of the nation’s black preachers and “the poet laureate of American Protestantism,” died April 5. He was 96....

Azra Akšamija and Jo Murphy make art that points to things made invisible by fear—both our own fear and our society's.

A decade ago, I was writing historical novels about black Latter-day Saints history. I was contextualizing the death of Mary Ann Adams Abel, wife of black LDS priest (ordained by Joseph Smith) Elijah Abel, and reading newspapers of the day. What stories were the people who attended Mary Ann’s funeral reading? The most interesting article (for me) was one published in the Deseret Weekly News on December 5, 1877—a week after Mary Ann’s death.

The ongoing uproar over legislative actions in Indiana and Arkansas over the rights of businesses to serve or not serve customers based on religious preferences will echo in our ears for a while longer. The question, of course, is Why?

Tomlin’s latest collection of worship songs brandishes a full-band sound, yet many should adapt well to more intimate settings.

Brantley Gasaway contends that the progressive evangelical movement "stands as strong as ever." Which is to say, not very strong at all.

(The Christian Science Monitor) It has been four years since Garissa University College opened its doors as northern Kenya’s first uni...

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

Assyrian Christians call 1915 Sayfo, the Year of the Sword. One hundred years later, they're still being killed.

Touch me and see, said the prisoners. Shake my hand and discover that I am human like you.

(RNS) I’m not supposed to like this idea. It was put forward by a conservative Christian pastor who says that “Faithful American Christians are increasingly under attack across the country by the gay lobby.” And it’s a proposal for Christian-owned small businesses who don’t want to serve people like me: gay people, especially ones who are out, loud, and proud.

In assigning pieces to writers, I’ve found that I make a lot of assumptions about how people use the Revised Common Lectionary, how they observe the church calendar, etc. I’d like to have better information about this.

“I’m going to do something weird,” Malak whispers to Katie, her bunkmate for our six-day interfaith immersion trip to Chicago. Malak slips into her cotton prayer robe, its royal blue flower print covers her head, her arms to her wrists, and hangs to her feet. She begins her prayers, facing Mecca, alternating positions of standing and then prostrating herself with her forehead to the floor while silently praying in Arabic. When she finishes, Katie, a Christian, intentionally takes a moment to say, “I don’t think it’s weird, Malak. I think it’s beautiful.” I wasn’t sure what would come of this interfaith immersion trip.

Layered, dense, and driving, this Chicago-based outfit recalls British new wave bands Lush, the Cocteau Twins, and Joy Division....

c. 2015 Religion News Service...

(The Christian Science Monitor) “We have to sing this song with a happy voice,” George Owino urged the dozen or so worshi...

The ACA is no longer just an idea. It is how millions of people access health care—and the Supreme Court stands poised to gut it.

Last year I took a class to determine my Enneagram number. I’m an old hand at Myers-Briggs, with its 16 types, but this nine-number circle with all sorts of arrows going back and forth was a new system for me. Thankfully the teacher, Suzanne Stabile, had a teaching style I understood well. It turns out we are the same type. Some of us reside in the heart (or feeling) triad, as Suzanne and I do, and some in the head (or thinking) triad. My guess is Thomas would belong in the third triad.

Oscar Wilde once said that life imitates art far more than art imitates life. I often see great truth in Wilde’s musings....