Category: Christian news

I love the church, but I can’t say I always understand or even like it. And in my more than half a century inside it, I can’t remember a time when the American church seemed less clear about its identity and purpose. The Lord decreed love as our signature characteristic (John 13:35), yet Christians have earned a reputation for hatefulness and even raunchiness. From our epidemic of leadership failures to the steady hemorrhaging of the disillusioned, it feels as if we’ve lost our... Read More

If you’re in the midst of launching a child into adulthood, preparing them to keep the faith as they grow up, you’ve probably already begun to train them in apologetics. It might not be formal apologetics, though that’s what comes to mind for me: debates, arguments, refuting other people’s beliefs point by point. That kind of apologetics can be helpful for people legitimately wrestling with faith and Scripture. For teenagers especially, it can be a wonderful tool—evidence that... Read More

Donald Trump’s manifold sins and acts of wickedness are so numerous that they are almost too tedious to repeat. He is a danger to democracy, a would-be fascist who has promised that voting for him means never needing to vote again, and he fomented the worst event in recent American history, the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol—the refrain could go on ad nauseam, ad infinitum. Yet Joel Looper convincingly shows that these are the obvious political symptoms of a... Read More

This story will be updated. Steve Oh can trace his family’s Christian heritage back to the Protestant missionaries who arrived in Korea in the 1800s.  “My family has been blessed by the global missionary movement,” said Oh, a Korean Australian pastor who leads Sydney Living Hope Community Church.  This week, Oh is one of 5,200 Christians from more than 200 countries in Incheon, South Korea, for the fourth Lausanne Congress. The gathering comes as a “full circle moment,”... Read More

Most Americans don’t see either of this year’s presidential candidates as particularly religious or Christian. In a new survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs, 64 percent of adults said they don’t consider former president Donald Trump religious and 53 percent said they don’t consider Kamala Harris religious. A majority also agreed that they wouldn’t describe either as “Christian.” A plurality of Americans—41 percent—say neither Trump nor Harris... Read More

I flash my United Nations (UN) access badge to the police officer, and he waves me through the security barrier. As I approach the plaza, I see snipers with rifles on the roof and hear a dozen different languages. Black limousines are everywhere as presidents and prime ministers converge in New York City, preparing their speeches for the UN General Assembly, which kicked off earlier this month.  It’s been five years since I became Mennonite Central Committee’s (MCC)... Read More

If you tried to design an ideal setting for learning how to be a good neighbor, it would look a lot like a college campus. As the president of a campus ministry, I might be a little biased in that assessment. But imagine the reality that a brand-new college student faces when they come to campus for the first time. Thousands are already there from every walk of life: athletes, musicians, activists, artists, people of different cultures and ethnicities, introverts and extroverts, people who... Read More

The first thing you notice about Brenna Blain is probably her tattoos, a patchwork of ink stretching from her shoulders to her hands. A death’s-head hawkmoth spreads its wings around her neck, with a marking at its center that resembles a human skull. For this 28-year-old Christian speaker and teacher in the Pacific Northwest, her brazen ink isn’t a liability—it’s an invitation. The neck tattoo opens unlikely conversations with those she says “would never choose to talk to a... Read More

A drug abuse crisis is raging in Zimbabwe, with experts and medics warning that a staggering 57 percent of Zimbabwe’s youth are involved with illicit drugs, from cocaine and ecstasy to tainted cough syrup and illegally brewed beers.  The church hasn’t been spared, and many leaders say they’re unsure how to respond.  “At first, ten years ago, we would suspend church youths dabbling in cocaine or ecstasy pills or illicit whiskies, intimidating them with Bible verses,” said... Read More

It’s Saturday night, and you’re looking for jazz in Germany’s capital. You could catch an after-midnight jam session at A-Trane in Charlottenburg, get cozy in the stylish, intimate ambience of the Zig Zag Club in Friedenau, or catch a solo saxophonist serenading the crowd at Berlin’s oldest jazz club, Quasimodo. And there’s one more option: You could wait until morning and go to church in the Wedding district. One part church plant, one part jazz project, Kiez Church (Neighborhood... Read More