David A. Garner

The Briefing 1.30.15

Each Friday we compile a list of interesting links and articles our editors find from across the web. Here’s what’s catching our eye this week. Wikipedia bans some editors from gender-related articles: Wikipedia’s arbitration committee, the highest user-run body on the site, has voted to ban a number of editors from making corrections to articles […]

Catherine Bowler

Wanted: Celebrity and the American Prosperity Preacher

Joel Osteen has every reason to smile. The man known as the “smiling preacher” earns top billing as the leader of Lakewood Church, the nation’s largest church and 43,500 members strong. His books debut as New York Times bestsellers. He looks at home seated across from Larry King, Barbara Walters, and the feisty cast of The View. […]

Christopher J. H. Wright

Saints in the Marketplace: A Biblical Perspective on the World of Work

Contrary to the pervasive “sacred-secular” dichotomy that infects many Christians’ view of the world of “ordinary” work, the Bible has a comprehensive and positive understanding of God’s involvement in the public arena, from creation to new creation, providing perspectives that should govern our ethical, missional, and pastoral engagement with it.

Christopher J. H. Wright

The “Righteous Rich” in the Old Testament

The Old Testament recognizes that riches can be gained through wickedness and oppression, but it also teaches and exemplifies that those to whom God grants more than ordinary wealth can and should make use of it in ways that are righteous before God, both in attitude and in practice.

Edward R. Brown

A Tale of Two Cities

Dubai and Nairobi represent two ends of the poverty/wealth spectrum, but which one is really wealthy?

Andrew Forrest

Asbury Park’s Offer to a Pretty County

“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack, in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” –Leonard Cohen The wind picks up above Sunset Lake, caressing and soothing its dirtied shores, knocking Pepsi cans up onto the street away from the water, chanting choruses for a […]