Category: Christian Articles

We are, sadly, familiar with pastors having to leave the ministry because of sexual impropriety. These incidents seem to occur with such frequency as to be barely newsworthy to a watching world. But another, equally sad trend has developed in recent years: Pastors having to leave for bullying. While we

Robert Bowers was still screaming that he wanted to kill Jews when he entered Allegheny General Hospital with multiple gunshot wounds. This after he shot and killed 11 at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. “He’s taken into my hospital, and he’s shouting, ‘I want to kill all the

Alexa is my saviour. The digital voice assistant from Amazon hears me shoulder my way into the back kitchen door, arms loaded with bags and keys jangling from a pinkie. “Alexa, turn on the lights!” I command with a little desperation. Thanks, Alexa, I think as the lights blink on

You’ve probably heard someone say at some point “Don’t be such a Pharisee.” Typically these words are uttered when someone is overly scrupulous in “rule keeping” in the Christian life. If there’s one type of person in the New Testament that you don’t want to be compared to, surely it’s

For many around the world, mental illness is a not just a theoretical issue. Instead, it plays itself out in many ways and can impact nearly every moment of every day. For some, the struggle is manageable; although disruptive, they are still able to function at near normal capacity. Others,

“I began to feel I was an exception, that what I would censure in others, I could justify for myself,” a pastor reflects. “Looking back, I realise that as I was burning out, my values were going first. And there were no relationships where I was open or accountable.” Individualism.

Ministry within honour-shame cultures is a widely discussed topic today. The majority world and especially the East, as we’ve come to realise, doesn’t think the way we do. In a sense, they work on a completely different operating system, which means Western missionaries must adapt our default language and “coding” when presenting

Aware that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do pray that, by his grace, he will enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are in line with his will, and that they will honour Christ. Remember to read over these Resolutions once a

The Story: A new survey finds that while most people in Western Europe consider themselves to be Christians, they are less religious than ‘nones’ (i.e., atheists, agnostics, and religiously unaffiliated) are in America. The Background: Pew Research finds that most adults surveyed in Western Europe still consider themselves to be Christians—even if they seldom

Billy Graham kept the focus on God at all times. How did he do it? Future historians will find more than enough material from Billy Graham’s life and work to keep them occupied. But one of the main questions they will want to answer is: What was the secret of

You have seen my picture a thousand times. It’s a picture that made the world gasp—a picture that defined my life. I am nine years old, running along a puddled roadway in front of an expressionless soldier, arms outstretched, naked, shrieking in pain and fear, the dark contour of a

Visitors to London Zoo last autumn stood enthralled, watching the family dynamics of the critically endangered Sumatran tiger playing out before them. The two newborn cubs, instinctively mischievous, repeatedly pounced and climbed up their 280-pound father, claws unsheathed. Crowds admired this tiger, built for predatory power, turning his obvious annoyance

So we urged Titus that just as he had begun, so he should also complete among you this act of grace. — 2 Corinthians 8:6 Paul uses a curious phrase here, saying that Titus could “complete the grace” given to him by passing on what he’d been given. It sounds on the

God Is Stranger: Stranger Grace And Stranger Danger. I recently interviewed Dr Krish Kandiah, who is founding director of a fostering and adoption charity called Home for Good. His latest book, God is Stranger: Finding God in Unexpected Places was recently published by my friends at InterVarsity Press in the USA. Krish is one of

Evangelical Christians Are Sick. The scene to me was new and passing strange,” wrote Presbyterian pastor Barton Stone as he witnessed a revival in Kentucky in the spring of 1801. “Many, very many fell down, as men slain in battle, and continued for hours together in an apparently breathless and

Did God Command Genocide In The Old Testament? My oldest child was born in 2010. Sometimes I think about how different the world is from the one in which I grew up. None of my children, for example, will ever remember a time when there was no Internet. On the

Whatever Became of Repentance? On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther is said to have posted 95 theses, or “Disputation on the Power of Indulgences,” on the door of All Saints Church. The professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg was proposing an academic debate about indulgences—the practice of