Still Divided by Faith (plus, a hope that sustains)

I was buried in a writing project when the CNN special Black in America first aired a couple weeks back, so I missed writing about it then. I caught it in bits and pieces. If anyone out there has comments or reviews they’d like to share here, please do. Related to that special, CNN.com has [...]

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Is Obama the Antichrist? No, says Tim LaHaye

 
Looks like I’m on a Barack Obama kick again. Sorry about that, but I couldn’t resist posting about this latest curiosity that came to my attention today when I received a press release from the Christian Newswire. It’s about one of the current campaign ads from John McCain. I hadn’t seen it yet, but the press [...]

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Is Obama Really a Christian?

Cathleen Falsani has a great column in today’s Chicago Sun-Times. The question at hand: “Is Barack Obama really a Christian?” Or better yet: “Who is a Christian?” We’ve covered some of this turf before, but it’s an endlessly fascinating topic.

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How Can a ‘Christian’ African American Vote for Obama?

I didn’t want this to become Barack Obama week here at the blog, but it seems like much of the best thinking on issues of racial reconciliation in society are related to things happening in and around the Obama campaign. Which, I suppose, should not be that surprising.
Briefly, I wanted to call your attention to [...]

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Obama, Evangelicals, Coded Prejudice

Lots of energetic conversations happening across the blogosphere. I’m too busy to blog about them with any manner of cogency, but allow me to throw out a few items that I would expound on if I had the time.
The Obama vs. Dobson Bible Controversy. My friend Josh Canada has an informative post about this over at his [...]

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Michael Emerson: Confronting Our Racial Volcanoes

Last month, a few dozen Christian leaders gathered at Duke University to discuss issues of racial and ethnic reconciliation. The meeting was called by Chris Rice, coauthor of the landmark book More Than Equals and director of Duke Divinity’s Center for Reconciliation. I was invited to attend the event, but unfortunately I could not (I [...]

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What’s in a (Church) Name?

Last week, Charisma published a provocative online commentary by editor Lee Grady. Lee is a bold analyzer of Christian culture and one of my former racquetball partners back when I lived in Florida in the late ’90s. In his April 16 column, “Tired Labels and Worn-out Wineskins,” Lee urges Christian leaders to reconsider the bewildering [...]

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Rob Bell: We Have It Upside Down

 On a plane recently, I had the chance to re-read the Jan/Feb cover story in Relevant magazine about Rob Bell. Bell, as many of you probably know, is the bespectacled pastor of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I read his first book, Velvet Elvis, a couple years ago and enjoyed it (haven’t gotten around to his latest yet, [...]

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Why It’s Hard to Label Faith

Yesterday’s Orlando Sentinel featured an interesting commentary on the latest Pew study on the U.S. religious landscape. Written by David Steinmetz, a professor of Christian history at the Duke Divinity School, the Sentinel essay applauds the Pew study for its ambitious effort but cautions the Pew organization and others to not overlook the many nuances of identity [...]

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Breaking News About ‘Blues’

Prison Fellowship president Mark Earley delivered a generous commentary about my book yesterday on the ministry’s BreakPoint radio program. You can read and listen to it here. I’m grateful to Mark and PFM for the shout-out, and hopeful that the message of Reconciliation Blues will reach an even wider audience as a result.

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