Someday, I will get to the Vatican. I just know it. I’ll stroll through St. Peter’s square, tour the museum, and visit the library. I’ll also pray in the Sistine Chapel, overshadowed by Michelangelo’s famous painting of a male God with flowing white hair, a long beard, and a muscular body. Historical artistic depictions portray…
Over the past year, I’ve enjoyed the Grantchester Mysteries, both the novels by James Runcie and the PBS Masterpiece series. The mysteries feature Sidney Chambers, vicar and amateur detective of Grantchester, England. He spends his time all over town—visiting the sick, walking his dog, fixing faucets, and presiding over village fêtes. He’s available for his…
Despite an upbringing in the church and a few worn out Bibles, I have never considered myself a theologian. According to R. C. Sproul, though, I am one. In Knowing Scripture, he states, “No Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian is a theologian. Perhaps not a theologian in the technical or professional sense, but a…
One of the interesting things about becoming an adult is that I find myself asking fewer questions about the meaning of life. When I was a child, I lobbed a constant barrage of “whys” at my parents from the backseat, the dinner table, or our nightly check-ins before bed. Why is the sky blue? Why…
A friend on facebook pled, “I beg everyone not to use #alllivesmatter.” If someone else had asked me not to use the hashtag, someone hateful—who didn’t believe that all lives did matter—the request would have been easy to dismiss. But because it was from a friend I trust, a wife and mother who worries about…
If my experience of trying to root out my racial bias and racist tendencies is at all normative, one of the most significant barriers is defensiveness. Though it makes complete sense for whites to feel defensive when the topic of racism comes up, if we want to bring this systemic sin to an end, we…
I have the pleasure of introducing you to Jenny Rae Armstrong, a teaching pastor of Darrow Road Wesleyan Church in Superior, Wisconsin. Jenny is an award-winning freelance journalist who writes about faith, social justice, missional living and women’s issues for Christian publications such as Relevant, Her.meneutics, Mutuality and Red Letter Christians. She is a…
“It was the Sunday I hated most of the whole year,” writes Marlo Schalesky in Empty Womb, Aching Heart. “There was a huge vase at the front of the church filled with dozens of beautiful long-stemmed pink roses. . . One rose for each mother in the congregation. Of course, I wouldn’t receive one because…
I fell in love with Charleston the first time I set foot there, probably because it was so different from where I grew up and now live, the flat plains of the Midwest. I had never been to a place with such character, beauty, and history all wrapped into one quaint package, complete with horse-drawn…
You move along a sidewalk in a busy city. You can see your breath with each exhale into the winter air. A homeless man comes into view leaning back on the building ahead. Do you… a) Avert your eyes and keep walking?It’s as if not seeing him, makes him not real. b) Drop a few…
Christians fall into two categories. Of course, there are many more than two, but for the purposes of this letter I’m sticking with these two: There are those who want to stand for truth above all and there are those who want to have peace above all. If you are in the latter group, this…
As I said in “An Open Letter to Truth-Loving Christians,” Christians fall into two categories. Of course, there are many more than two, but for the purposes of this letter I’m addressing these two: There are those who want to stand for truth above all and there are those who want to have peace above…
I have a fierce desire to protect women’s rights and to promote their well being. Because of that, I didn’t immediately jump on the pro-life bandwagon. It sounded like a good, spiritual thing to protect the unborn, but I was worried about the woman’s, yes, right to choose. But I wanted to do volunteer work….
Yesterday I got a knock on my office door. A young man from one of my classes stopped by for some help with a paper, so, as is my personality, I tried to break the ice by asking about his weekend. “Oh, it was O.K.,” he said with a slight grin. “One part was a…