Gareth Higgins The History Channel's The Bible, like so much of so-callled "religious pop culture," seemed to be the produ ...

We often assume and speak as if faith = belief. If this leads to action, that is wonderful. Yet we still assume it is possible to speak about faith even if there is no action. La ...

April 25, 2013 Sojo in the News Jim Wallis ...

A while back I had an opportunity to sit down and talk with up-and-coming singer-songwriter Nataly Dawn about faith and songwriting. Dawn grew up in France, went to Stanford for undergrad, and made it big on Y ...

How far can one go in retelling a Bible story, adding things that are not in the original? In The Testament of Mary, Colm Toibin goes a long way. NEW YORK — How far can one go in ...

More than one-half of Americans think the Bible has too little influence on a culture they see in moral decline, yet only one in five Americans read the Bible on a regular basis, according to a new survey. ...

Julie Polter Whether you're preaching the Bible, teaching it, or reading it on your own, there are always new facets to be revealed. ...

Rose Marie Berger What will it take to push back climate change? A Spirit-driven 'power shift' might be a key. ...

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson Bible, Gender, Sexuality calls us to a more honest dialogue about scripture's meaning for us today. ...

We can argue day and night about whether fear-based theology is effective, biblically accurate, or even necessary. But it’s worthwhile to consider where our contemporary ideas about hell and Satan even come fr ...

Evangelical theologian David Lamb tackles some of the Bible’s most troubling passages in his book, God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist? His answer: yes and no. ...

My sister read aloud. Chapter 1: Zechariah, Mary, Elizabeth, babies on the way. Chapter 2: Jesus, prophesies. Chapter 3: John the Baptist, and wait, what? Every Christmas, my fami ...

The connection between God and violence permeates the Bible, with God apparently sanctioning violence against God’s enemies. So we rightly ask, “What about all the violence in the Bible?” ...

November 20, 2012 Sojo in the News Napp Nazworth ...

November 15, 2012 Sojo in the News Melissa Steffan ...

“People who insist that the sacredness of Scripture depends on belief in creation in a literal six days seem never to insist on a literal reading of ‘to him who asks, give,’ or ‘sell what you have and give the ...

Perhaps the change I am most thankful for (other than a new awareness of justification by faith alone, simul iustus et peccator, and imputed righteousness of course) is that the Reformation paved the way for ...

Debates on immigration in the United States continue to move in the default direction of North/South. As such, the prominent debating points often direct public attention to the U.S./Mexico border fence and t ...

In this year of presidential elections, I have decided to summarize key values that guide me as I decide for whom to cast my vote. There are three basic elements of choosing a candidate for public office respo ...

The fruits of the garden required labor, and the fruit of their knowledge produced children, and God made each to tend the land. Decreeing that (hu)man(ity) must toil the earth, and the female body would endur ...

A federal judge on Oct. 1 dismissed a lawsuit filed by an atheist group that challenged a "Year of the Bible" resolution passed early this year by Pennsylvania lawmakers. ...

Even historians and others who don’t claim Christianity personally are intrigued by the scrap of text recently discovered to contain, in Coptic, the sentence fragment: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…’” ...

Cheerleaders at an East Texas high school are fighting their school district’s orders to stop using Bible quotes on their signs at football games. Cheerleaders at an East Texas hi ...

You just can’t look at the cross and think “Wow, good thing Jesus did that for the people we’ve identified as being the problem around here.” The healing love of God poured out through the death and resurrecti ...

Jim Wallis No, that isn’t a typo. Sojourners stood side by side with Focus on the Family to draw attention to the plight of millions who ...

Here’s the challenge for those concerned with words in worship: Can we ever argue that it doesn’t matter what we say, as long as we say it properly? I don’t think so. “Words! Wor ...

Like the story of David and Bathsheba, death and love too often are linked in the stories of women living with HIV and AIDS in Africa. If we want to see this pandemic end, women must be given space to have pow ...

A hotel in the United Kingdom has replaced in-room Gideon Bibles with the soft-porn best-seller Fifty Shades of Grey. A hotel in the United Kingdom has replaced in-room Gideon Bib ...

Maybe we haven't all heard the thunder clap yet, but the lightning bolt struck a while ago. We are going to have to adjust our reading of the Bible to coincide with a modern scientific understanding of th ...

For those unfamiliar, there are (at least) two camps in the Christian conversation about gender roles, one of which we can call “egalitarian,” and the other calls itself “complementarian.” The implication of t ...

Here are five habits, often attributed to “Christian parenting” values, that I’d just as soon replace with something new. I was invited by Paul, my editor at Huffington Post, to w ...

So in so much as I understand God to be the pervasive presence and expression of love in the universe, and in so much as I understand Jesus to be the most perfect embodiment of that love in the world, I believ ...

According to CNN: Last year, Gideons International distributed more than 84 million printed copies of the Bible around the world to students, hospitals, members of the military and, of course, hotels, where they are a ubiquitous sight i ...

Julie Polter God and the Godforsaken — Searching Harmonies — In Shadows and Hope — Bible Culture 101 God an ...

Peace is better than war. Good of the whole is better than whims of a few. God wants everybody — red, yellow, black, brown and white taken care of. God wants true community, more togetherness … not more separa ...

Can those who don’t interpret scripture literally use the Bible as a bludgeon against others? Of course. But the inherent lack of room for discussion, critical thought, nuance or even alternate views within th ...

Both religion and politics are concerned with how we should organize societies. Yet the tendency for Christians has often been to begin with the politics and work backwards to find religious rationale for our ...

No matter where you stand on the issue of gay marriage, there are some boundaries of human decency that should never be crossed. Never. ...

N.T. Wright has explored Christian misconceptions about heaven in previous books, but now devotes an entire volume, "How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels," to this trendy subject. ...

Despite emotional protests and fierce lobbying from gay rights groups, United Methodists voted on Thursday to maintain their denomination's stance that homosexuals acts are "incompatible with Christi ...

Later this spring, an entire Bible in Inuktitut, the language of Inuit people and the most widely spoken aboriginal tongue in Canada's Arctic, will be dedicated at an igloo-shaped church in Nunavut, an au ...

On April 29th, many churches will be hearing this reading from I John 3:16-24 as the Epistle Lesson for the Revised Common Lectionary for the Fourth Sunday of Easter/Year B. Here is a new hymn inspired by thi ...

Seven years in the making, "The Voice" is the latest entry into the crowded field of English Bible translations. NASHVILLE, Tenn.—The name Jesus Christ doesn't appe ...

Take a listen to this cover of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” performed on a Chinese instrument from the zither family, known as a Guzheng . [ The Awesomer ] Fifth Ward Jam is a housing redevelopment project that combines ...

Atheist activism is hardly news these days. Folks are feeling increasingly convicted about taking their disbelief public, and more specifically, pointing out the damage done by religion. But it seems the most ...

In the next few months I fear that polarized debate over issues concerning the lives and bodies of women will continue to stifle political and social progress in this country. Shame on Democrats and Republican ...

While compiling the morning “Daily Digest,” I often recall the advice of Karl Barth, who is said to have told young theologians “to take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspa ...

There was a movement back in the 1960s that many of us only have read about, while others vividly remember. Philosophers and theologians explored what was labeled the “Death of God” movement. Interest in the s ...

In 2004 I met then-State Sen. Barack Obama at Café Baci, a small coffee shop in Chicago. We spoke for more than an hour. He came alone. No handler, no spokesperson, no notes. He seemed to be relaxed and at eas ...

LONDON — Britain's powerful media advertising watchdog has banned a Christian group from claiming on its website and brochures that God's cure-all powers can heal a string of medical ailments.The Ad ...