Via the Out of Ur blog, a story of pastors engaging in civil disobedience… against the IRS. Last Sunday, a group of pastors endorsed a specific political candidate from their pulpits. Doing so violated a long-time ban on political endorsement by churches—and jeopardizes those churches’ tax-exempt status.
I’d like to get your reactions to this. Here [...]

The Suburban Christian mentions an interesting phenomenon that has to do with churches and—to some extent—marketing:
Another megachurch example of parish localism happened at Rick Warren’s church, Saddleback Church in Orange County, a totally suburban environment. After 9/11, Saddleback provided lawn signs to their church members. The signs said “Pray for Peace” or something like that. [...]

Love conquers hate

Is it time for clergy to get out of the wedding business? An article in the Sacramento Bee describes a growing sense in some California churches that the traditional “church marriage” ceremony should be reconsidered:
The controversy over same-sex marriage – along with a growing sense that many couples who marry in churches never return – [...]

Earlier this month the famous Soviet dissident and writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn passed away. I realize that this is officially Old News (it’s been three whole weeks!), but I want to chat for a moment about this great—you might even say prophetic—man, and hear your thoughts about his life and writings.
He was a fascinating man, and [...]

I thought mega-church pastor and mega-selling author, Rick Warren, did an excellent job moderating the forum with U.S. presidential candidates John McCain and Barak Obama. I’ll let you decide how you felt the candidates fared.
Apparently, there was something going on in China, so if you missed the forum:
Read the transcript
Watch the video

Here’s a rather heavy item for you to ponder on a Monday morning: there’s a long and fascinating post at On the Square tracing the decline and fall of Protestant America—that is, the vanishing influence of mainstream Protestant denominations (Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran) on American society. The article is far too in-depth to summarize [...]

Today, California will begin performing same-sex unions for any residents of the United States, but the unions will not be legal in all other states.
On May 15, California’s Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples can marry. The window of opportunity could close in November, however, when a constitutional amendment could limit “marriage” to [...]

The popular HBO series Sex and the City is coming to the big screen. The series followed relationship columnist and anthropologist, Carrie Bradshaw, as she and her three gal pals indulged in designer shoes and casual sex. As a researcher, Bradshaw somehow missed some important research findings on the subject—and that’s a pity!
For [...]

Is our world sliding towards hell in the proverbial handbasket? Is society today more evil than previous generations, and is it going to keep getting worse until Jesus returns?
There’s an interesting post at the IMAGE blog about the fall of ‘declinism’, in which the author Gregory Wolfe suggests that belief in the “everything is getting [...]