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. […]

The value of football is found not in fame and fortune, but rather in the potential it provides for cultivating moral and athletic excellence.

When Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz was at the apex of its initial popularity, I was starting as an undergrad in Oregon at Multnomah Bible College (now Multnomah University).1 Miller’s book swelled like music on our campus and others like ours. Many of us carried a secret fear that the joke all Bible and Seminary students […]

See Part I of this essay series, in which Swanson begins her analysis of evanglical responses to the Twilight series by examining Twilight’s false message of abstinence, and Part II, in which she critiques New Moon’s portrayal of men as “protectors” and women as “perpetual, self-sacrificing victims.” Here in Part III, Swanson examines the dangerous sexual dynamic between Edward […]

That field behind the barn across the road, how it once perfected your desires in summer sun . . . To sit in that grass right now, would you offer up a poem? Let the eyes of orioles fund you— let the wind publish you on leaves? All right, draw one more sip of your […]

I A dilapidated yellow ice cream truck parked outside the fenced microwave tower, about a mile outside the tiny township of Cisco, Illinois. Aside from the few silver grain silos and the blinking elevator at the Co-op in town, the buzzing tower was the only vertical sign of human progress in the expanse of corn, […]

In this interview, Nathan R. Kerr reflects on some of the conversations that have emerged in the last two years since the release of his book Christ, History, and Apocalyptic: The Politics of Christian Mission. In particular, he explores the connections between Christology, the nature and task of theology, and the mission of the church in […]

I’m your biggest fan, I’ll follow you until you love me Papa, paparazzi —Lyrics from “Paparazzi” as performed by Lady Gaga The Greatest Day in New England History The streets of Boston course with life as a crowd greater than the city’s total population joins in celebration. Commerce grinds to a standstill. Women faint. Grown men weep. […]