The discovery that some ancient Christians thought Jesus had a wife could shake up centuries-old Christian traditions, Karen King, a well-respected historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, s ...

Prolific author Max Lucado talked to Religion News Service about grace, the topic of his 29th book, and answered a range of questions from people who follow RNS on Twitter. Lucado, 57, is the minister of preac ...

A newly revealed piece of papyrus offers fresh evidence that some early Christians believed Jesus was married, according to a Harvard Divinity School professor. Dan Brown, ...

I experience the gospel to be true even when I can’t believe it. And honestly sometimes I believe the gospel even when I don’t experience it. And I suggest to you today that this is why we have and even why w ...

Muslims' alleged canine-phobia is often cited by critics of Islam as an example of how the faith is incompatible with Western values. Some Muslims have perpetuated that narrative, such as when a Somali ca ...

Jacques Berlinerblau wastes no ink in his new book trying to flatter his fellow nonbelievers. "American atheist movements, though fancying themselves a lion, are more like the gimpy little zebra crossing ...

It’s one thing when philosophers, atheists, or even religious folks on the fringes of a system call for serious reevaluation, but when the Dalai Lama says it, that’s enough to give me pause and wonder if this ...

September 10, 2012 Sojo in the News Jamie L Manson ...

When I became an elementary school teacher, one of my goals was to teach my students to sing the Preamble. "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union ..." ...

Good and gracious God, Today we come before you with heavy hearts as we remember the events of 9/11. Good and gracious God, Today we come before you with heavy hearts as we ...

“There are thousands of stories from 9/11. Some are stories of pain and survival. Many are stories of heroism. Mine is a story of faith.” For John Mahony, a retired U.S. Army colo ...

While watching the replayed video of the plane colliding with the first tower, the second tower attack came. And then there were the reports of similar attacks at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. At that mome ...

Terrorism stories are rarely happy stories, and yet the path Timothy O'Leary has taken — from bringing the controversial opera "The Death of Klinghoffer" to St. Louis last year to a Sept. 11 mem ...

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 ...

Some of the psalms are pure jubilation, but just as many — the “psalms of complaint” — sound like … well, like the private Mother Teresa. On Sept. 5, 1997, the world mourned when ...

When did the good news become bad news? Why did Jesus have to die? Was it to appease a wrathful God's demand for punishment? Does that mean Jesus died to save us from God? Ho ...

Friends, it’s time to wake up and get off the couch. It’s time to perform a “chuck fest” on our souls. “In order to serve our world," Bono once said, "we must betray it. ...

As an 11-year-old boy, Don Bradley went looking for gold plates. After all, Mormon founder Joseph Smith said he was directed to a set of such plates, buried in a hill near his house in upstate New York. ...

Sometimes, to see our true faith, it has to be challenged, smacked in the face. Sometimes in pursuit of our real and true selves, which is the only soil where real and true faith can flourish, we have to face ...

The U.S. Catholic bishops' point man on sexual abuse has said that the hierarchy's credibility on fixing the problem is "shredded" and that the situation is comparable to the Reformation, w ...

Thinking back to the action hero movies of my childhood, guys like Sylvester Stallone and Ah-nuld Schwarzenegger were the pictures of masculinity. Now they’ve been replaced by Tobey Maguire’s bookish Spiderman ...

Hello fellow Sojourners!This is a brief missive for your enjoyment. I just returned from the Wild Goose Festival in Corvallis, Ore. Yes, Oregon and not North Carolina. You see, in a fit of wisdom, the good peo ...

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, revered as a messiah within his Unification Church but regarded by many others as a vain and enigmatic man who blessed mass weddings, built a sprawling business empire and presided ove ...

Eboo Patel Sometimes I fly through my schedule so fast that I zoom past the craft. A FEW YEARS back, Sojour ...

John F. Alexander Dear Jesus... Apparently you have never really understood the white man’s religion. If you ...

Michelle Garcia The Street Psalms community pursues theology from below—and that changes everything about how "missionary" work ...

Korla Masters Rev. Doug Mork Duane Shank Peggy Flanagan ...

Ron Browning Revelations abound when refugees study the Bible's last book. WHEN A GROUP of refugees from ...

James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 The letter of James seems to lie at an opposite pole ... forget what they were like” (1:23-24). There is a process of reflection that is essential ... September 9 ] ‘Conquerors of Heaven’s Will’ Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Psalm 146; ...

] Needle’s Eye Still Trouble for Camels Job 23:1-9, 16-17; Psalm 90:12-17; Hebrews 4:12-16; ... And the disciples were perplexed at these words … They were greatly astounded” (Mark 10:23-24). In our time, ... 42:1-6, 10-17; Jeremiah 31:7-9; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 10:46-52 “He is able for all time to save ...

On the first Monday of September, America honors working stiffs by taking a paid day off. But does Labor Day celebrate an enterprise that God intended to be a punishment? On the f ...

The Rev. Benedict Groeschel, whose comments defending priests who sexually abuse children sparked a firestorm of controversy, on Thursday evening apologized for the remarks. NEW Y ...

On Aug. 29, the LDS church posted a statement on its website saying that “the church does not prohibit the use of caffeine” and that the faith’s health-code reference to “hot drinks” “does not go beyond (tea a ...

The saying “you can't go home again,” probably originated from Tom Wolfe's novel, You Can't Go Home Again. It's the story of an author who leaves his home, writes about it from a distance a ...

The Taliban in Afghanistan shocked the world this week when they beheaded 17 people, allegedly for the crime of dancing at a mixed-gender gathering. Which prompts the question: Does Islam forbid dancing? ...

Seven years after Hurricane Katrina toppled a nearby floodwall and drowned their synagogue, and after a seven-year journey praying in hotel meeting rooms, then in rooms borrowed and rented from another congreg ...

This division at our Eucharists inflicts pain upon those of tender conscience and deep love for Christ and his bride. They are broken upon the rocks of our divisions, and it is a scandal. ...

Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, Calif., a leading conservative in the Catholic hierarchy who is set to become the next archbishop of San Francisco, was arrested over the weekend for drunken driving and ...

in giving. While 23 percent of churches reported lower giving in 2010 than the previous year, just 15 percent ...

Every three years, the assigned readings during the summer include five weeks of working our way through the Gopel of John, chapter 6, and what is called the "Bread of Life Discourse." And let’s just ...

Unions and Gov't Will Sign Agreement After 44 Killed in Mine Violence in South Africa Bishop Kevin Dowling, the Catholic bishop of Rustenburg, South Africa, is co-president w ...

I am stuck between two worlds — the evangelical world where I am too liberal (by virtue of my vocation and career) and the mainline Christian world where I often feel disappointed by the lack of passion. I don ...

So this "soul" that we speak of — this part of our selves that isn't grounded in physical being but is spiritual (whatever that means) that we expect or hope will live on after our mortal coils ...

The law of God will collide with the law of man this week in a crowded federal courtroom in Cleveland, where 16 Amish defendants — 10 men with full beards, six women in white bonnets — will stand trial on char ...

I recognize that with each passing day we are deeply connected within the company of strangers, for they depend upon us, and we deeply depend upon them. This is, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, the “single ga ...

I babysat often through high school and remember a mom asking the dreaded question. I answered that I wanted to be a lawyer. She asked if I had ever thought about teaching. My response? I laughed and told her ...

In an email sent on Wednesday to members of the Grandville, Mich., church, leaders announced Kent Dobson had accepted the lead position. GRANDVILLE, Mich. — Mars Hill Bible Church ...

Physical violence is what happens when the violent force of words is not enough. I knew it was getting serious when he pulled out a golf club and said, “Don’t f--- with me!” Did I ...

Bryan Moyer is Mennonite, and his musical career was launched when he and some friends and colleagues in the Mennonite church began thinking about how the church can sing about God’s kingdom in ways that are a ...

Mussalaha, the popular faith-led peace movement in Syria, smuggles humanitarian aid to blockaded Rableh. Agencia Fides, the Vatican news outlet for Catholic missioners, is the onl ...