Last week, in this column, I wrote of George Barna’s recent research that indicates just slightly more than a third of American pastors (and even fewer parishioners) have a biblical worldview. “What’s ...

How to recover from your failures in the pulpit. One thing we can do if we sin during a sermon is offer a confession during the pauses. A simple “I’m sorry” in our hearts will suffice to bring us to a ...

Empathy is usually regarded as a virtue, a key to human decency and kindness. And yet, with increasing momentum, voices on the Christian right are preaching that it has become a vice. For them, ...

Why expository sermons should make up your church’s main diet. There are two basic forms of preaching: expository and topical. Hughes Oliphant Old defines ...

We called it the spring semester, but it felt like the dead of winter to me. The never-ending Chicago cold months slapped me in the face. I juggled my new schedule along my books, when I walked into ...

But my favorite is Hackenberg's series on the Revised Common Lectionary's Old Testament readings. The subject is "reclaiming sin." Here are the weekly themes: Lent 1 (Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7). We ...

When the American colonies declared their independence, Catholics made up less than 2 percent of the population. Until the nation came to encompass what had been Spanish and French territories, the ...

Sen. Ted Cruz preached tolerance for gay people during a Twitter spat with a pastor. "Let he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," Cruz tweeted. Cruz had previously ...