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What is it called when we complete a sermon, art, poetry, song or writing, and there is a bit of our soul that takes form and shape? Wisdom takes on paint. Beauty becomes clothed in letters. Depths of emotion become suffused in photos. When something ephemeral inside of us takes on a concrete quality that can be shared. When our art lives on after we have departed. What is it called?

My student hasn’t allegorized Jane Eyre as Origen did the Bible. But she wrestles with passages until the text gives her a blessing.

Every Sunday, more people attend Assemblies of God churches in the Sao Paulo area than in all the U.S.

When I posted about evangelicals and the death penalty the other day, I didn't note Samuel Rodriguez's piece at Time. Not because he's a controversial figure, but because the piece doesn't go very far: while evangelicals should be outraged by "the details" of how Clayton Lockett died, it's clear Stephanie Neiman's killer "needed to be permanently removed from" society (an artfully ambiguous phrase). They should be outraged by these details "regardless of how you feel about the death penalty." And how does Rodriguez himself feel about it? He's studiously noncommittal, that's how. I'm noting it now because yesterday, Morgan Lee posted an article in which Rodriguez elaborates on his own piece.

Rahila Muska, a teenage girl, lived in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold....

"The kidnapped girls were both Christian and Muslim; their only offense, it seems, was attending schoo...

c. 2014 Religion News Service...

c. 2014 Religion News Service...

c. 2014 Religion News Service...

Isn’t it possible for both Israeli and Palestinian narratives to be true? Dialogue ends when each side demands that the other “let go of past suffering” and “get over it.”

“When I started out I was focused on whether God was or was not out there. Now I am much more comfortable with ambiguity.”

In his first public claim acknowledging that Islamist Boko Haram militants abducted more than 200 teenage schoolgirls in Nigeria, Abubakar Shekau said in a video he would sell the girls because “th...

If you look around at most denominational meetings, you will see that Baby Boom retirements will have a massive impact on our denominations. Boomers make the majority of those in the pews, in the pulpits, and in power. The first wave of Boomers is in the midst of retiring, so what can we expect? How will this affect us? I can’t say for sure, but let me look into my crystal ball and tell you what I see.

What should clergy do when asked to offer public prayers at various events? My colleagues tend to have strong opinions on opposite sides of this question. Some feel that they are being used—or that it is part of an old Christendom model of being church to offer invocations and benedictions at public gatherings. Others feel it is a time to proselytize; so they will only pray if they can do so in the name of Jesus.  For my own part, whenever I can accept such invitations I say yes.

What do we think of when we think of touch? Of hugging a loved one, of caressing a child’s cheek, or of intimacy with a partner?...

(RNS) Long before head coach Doc Rivers found himself defending his Los Angeles Clippers players who were the unwelcome participants in team owner Donald Sterling’s racist comments all week, he was...

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The kidnapping of 300 teenage schoolgirls by the Islamist group Boko Haram has shamed Nigeria, Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan said Wednesday (May 7)....

In science, when negative data isn’t reported, the result is a silence that silences. A life-saving drug or a new discovery may be missed.

The movie Heaven Is for Real—based on the book by the same name—tells the story of minister Todd Burpo and his four-year-old son Colton. The main plot revolves around Colton’s near-death experience and his claims that while undergoing surgery he visited heaven and sat on Jesus’ lap. Burpo struggles to define what happened to Colton for himself as well as for the community of faith to which he ministers. 

Alden Solovy’s prayers touch on the times of life we most fear. He finds words for the moments in which most of us have only tears and groans....