When I used to hear Christian speakers glibly toss out statements like, “The Church has replaced Israel” as if they were chucking an empty fast food bag into the trash, I would inwardly cringe, but didn’t always have the opportunity to challenge the speaker. The last time I checked,  leaping onto a chair in the…

MTV’s Teen Mom ran for four seasons, was known for hyped-for-the-camera drama, occasional off-camera tabloid headlines featuring some of the program’s stars, and for giving some of the show’s viewers a wake-up call salacious glimpse at what young women and men (and their babies) face when they become parents too soon. The reality show was not…

Yesterday’s apology from Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus International, followed by the announcement that the organization would shut down, has sparked emotional reaction from many quarters. Google the story if you’re looking for a sampling of what people are saying today. I don’t want to add lots more words to this conversation, but I…

Though the surfacing of regret is certainly not limited to one particular age group, it is a mile marker that often signals that we’ve passed a spiritual halfway point in our life’s one-way journey and, to hijack a familiar metaphor, there really are no U-turns allowed. Those who follow Christ trust that his life, death…

One of the benefits of being a member of an online community like Patheos is that it gives us a chance to exchange ideas about faith, culture and more. Though most of us write collegially, side-by-virtual-side, we have occasional opportunities to interact with one another and with the diverse readers who visit the site. Patheos…

Should you stay or should you go? Besides being a riff on the title of one of the great pop-punk songs of the early 1980′s, it is a question with which congregants whose leaders have had moral failures by their leaders must grapple. Whether it is the stuff that grabs headlines (like the Sovereign Grace Ministries lawsuit or the…