Church
What is a church’s money for?
As a pastor, I am both grateful for our congregation’s healthy endowment and distressed by it. I don’t think I’m alone.
The shared root of antisemitism and White supremacy
Historian Magda Teter identifies an endemic rot at the center of Christianity.
The great man theory is poison for the church
The problem isn’t just that it exists. It’s that so many ministers fall for it.
My childhood congregation was a progressive Christian dream come true
So why don’t more of the people who grew up there practice Christianity as adults?
A church politics of nondomination
Liberal Anglicans and Methodists often face a tension between LGBTQ inclusion and anti-colonialism. But we don’t have to choose.
Feeling God in a modernist cathedral-in-progress
While other churches have filled me with wonder, Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia brought tears to my eyes.
What does it mean to be an inclusive church?
Being a community means welcoming those with diverse views, not cocooning oneself with like-minded people.
Puerto Rico as both object and subject of mission
José David Rodríguez provides a decolonial history of Lutheranism in the world’s oldest colony.
My dad’s old Bible offers more questions than answers
What can I learn from what he underlined—or didn’t?
What’s special about a church building?
How many buildings do we pass by in our daily lives where we could simply walk in, sit down, and participate?
A pulpit without a context
I asked ChatGPT for a sermon. What it wrote seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
A crushing lack of humanity
Both Apple’s “Crush” ad and Catholic Answers’ AI priest alarmed people. There’s some hope in that reaction.
Ukrainian military chaplains learn pluralism on the job
What to do if a soldier from another denomination asks for a prayer?
The wilderness of a rural ministry circuit
I’m now a half-time “missional coach” to a six-church parish. I have many questions.
Making room in the UMC for the Spirit’s work
The denomination’s new regionalization plan is a marked break from its colonial hangover.
Gathering for good
On a Copenhagen street, emergency responders and passersby formed a spontaneous community.
Missed opportunities at the UMC general conference
We took some good steps. But we are too afraid to name certain truths.
Religiously fluid
Like a lot of Christian millennials, I don’t need Christianity to be everything for me.
My son the PK said no to baptism
For now, anyway. After our discernment together, I consider this a success.