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Recently, I finished every episode of The Walking Dead to date. Beyond the compelling characters, rich storylines, and incomparable acting, the parallels to the spiritual walk are impressive. The gruesome scenes, notwithstanding. What follows are three critical lessons about the…

We, as Christians, ought to be totally, completely intolerant of evil and blasphemy. We should neither respect it nor dismiss it as mere “entertainment.” When someone mocks our God, we ought to oppose them forcefully and relentlessly. Shouting it…

There is a common belief among Americans that following Jesus will help you get what you want in life. In this story, the “good news” is good because it brings individual satisfaction and pleasure. The good news of the…

I wonder if the American church is setting itself up for failure? If church structure— which is geared toward meeting every need, developing everyone spiritually and organizing all inward and outward ministry — results in a 90 percent failure…

Do people want Christianity to be cool? What happens when churches become too driven by the desire to be trend-savvy and culturally relevant? Can a church balance hipster credibility within an orthodox tradition? Further time will tell whether the…

I’ve been thinking about the “double standards” of modesty supposedly held by men. I’m sure many of us remember quite a tempest in the internet teapot about yoga pants not too long ago. A number of women, bloggers and commenters…

Gaffigan seems to realize that he does have a voice in the realm of religious conversation—as evidenced from the The Jim Gaffigan Show—but his more organic approach to the intersection between his personal life and comedy creates a natural,…

Ron Cantor shows how modern claims that the first Christians were Palestinian must be false. It is good to be concerned about the plight of Palestinians today, but rewriting history is not the way to do it. This video…

More often than not, when I talk to twentysomethings who are seriously contemplating walking away from their faith, the main stumbling block is an intellectual one. My faith didn’t have the deep intellectual roots necessary to flourish outside of…

And this is the problem with Christianity in this country. Not just inside our church buildings, but everywhere. It often has no edge, no depth. No sense of its own ancient and epic history. There is no sacredness to…

Christianity still dominates American religious identity (70%), but the survey shows dramatic shifts as more people move out the doors of denominations, shedding spiritual connections along the way. Atheists and agnostics have nearly doubled their share of the religious…

A declining fertility rate in our culture is evidence that we have, as a culture, devalued children and family. We have done so to a point that our very future is now in question, though we may not realize…

My 8 year old looked at me with her deep brown eyes and said, “The world is scary.” I turned the TV off and wondered how to teach my kids about real love-the kind that makes us pray for…

“Savage” is the term that some Christians, or simply Westerners, used to justify their colonial conquest of indigenous peoples who didn’t have the proper sort of cultures, forms of dress, or skin colors. Without sitting on too high of…

When Rome commandeered Christianity, it affixed to the faith something it was never meant to be marked by: Power. That power, and the privilege, and ease, and comfort, and influence that came with it, at once became synonymous with the Christian faith. A movement that began…

So, what causes someone to pick up a gun, walk on to a school campus, and start shooting people? One researcher has argued that “modern society, with its emphasis on individualism and the pursuit of material happiness, fosters narcissism.”…

Hey Church, you may think you know why people are leaving you, but I’m not sure you do. You think it’s because “the culture” is so lost, so perverse, so beyond help that they are all walking away. You believe that they’ve…

Cultural celebrations are not man-made institutions. Like much of God’s creation, holidays can be—and have been—distorted for all sorts of less-than-holy purposes. But what if “Santa” really isn’t an anagram for “Satan”? What if we can can we redeem this holiday…

Jon Tyson explains how the church gets distracted from its mission of making disciples of Jesus. Instead, the culture is making disciples, and doing a much better job of it than the church. That’s a big…

Evangelicals have long been known for their ability to sanctify popular culture for religious purposes. Popular culture’s obsession with sex is no exception, which raises an evangelistic question: How do we make the gospel winsome to a society steeped…

The 1999 film American Beauty captured the imaginations of multitudes of Americans. The film speaks to me on many levels, including the theme that things are not always as they appear.  American Beauty brings me back to the primal story…

Missiologist, Alan Hirsch, talks with Ed Stetzer about the future of Christianity in America amid its increasingly secularized culture. They also discuss the importance of recovering a vision for the 5 key gifts Christ gave to his Church from…

Above all, we should approach American culture without panic or anger. This will be difficult. We will see things happening that we do, and should, lament, things that were kept from happening by the veneer of American civil religion.…

The fact is undeniable: for megachurches, cars are essential. It’s probably more accurate to say that cars created the megachurch. Without them, these churches simply couldn’t exist in the form they do today. The abundance of choices and the absence…

Tim Keller offers his 2 minute remarks on what the Millennial generation is getting right and…

Today’s Sunday Sermon is only 6 minutes long. This video observes how 2Chronicles 7:14 is so commonly quoted in contexts where Christians are bemoaning the evil in the world and the immorality of American culture. There is a tendency…

Today’s Throwback Thursday post recalls our previous post of an epic video in which Rich Mullins unabashedly confronts the flaws in the complacent consumerist version of Christianity that is found in much of mainstream America. Keep in mind that…

Mike Breen: If we think through Celebrity, Consumerism and Competition, the anti-body against all of these is sacrifice. Learning to lay down what builds us up and giving to others instead. Learning to serve, rather than to be served.…

Some questions we ask today would simply baffle our ancestors. When Christians ask whether believers should practice yoga, they are asking a question that betrays the strangeness of our current cultural moment — a time in which yoga seems…

About 150 years ago, Western men began forming and joining organizations that promoted a noble vision of manhood. That infrastructure created some of the finest men the world has ever known. We called them “the greatest generation.” They built the…

Rich Mullins had incredible musical talent. He was also an great example of what it looked like for someone to seek first the Kingdom of God. As such, he was a prophetic voice in his generation. This 5 minute…

Jesus talked a lot about what life in his Kingdom looks like. His description sounds pretty much the opposite of the worldly culture in which we find ourselves. This comic helps to illustrate this point.  …

Art is to be enjoyed, admired, and appreciated for its beauty as well as the medium in which that beauty is expressed. Art is also an outward expression of the beliefs and values of its artist. Art is beauty but…

Jeremy Pryor offers a compelling contrast between western views of family and the biblical view of family. The insights he offers here will be extremely valuable to anyone who is looking to strengthen their family culture but can’t find…

In this 8 minute video, Daniel Darling interviews Mike Cosper about how stories shape our lives and our beliefs. There are many good insights here about how our culture tells stories and how our worship can tell a great…