Recently Curated Content

BOOK: Vintage Saints and Sinners: 25 Christians Who Changed My Faith

What can we learn from the saints in history? Were they people that were on a higher spiritual plane? Did they know something we do not? In Vintage Sinner and Saints Karen Wright Marsh profiles 25 brothers and sisters of the faith in short digestible chapters telling a humanizing antidote or two about a saint while seamlessly exploring ways the saint pushes her to examine her own life and walk with God.

SHOW: The Secrets of Hillsong

A four-part docuseries that begins with the investigation of the resignation of Hillsong NYC pastor Carl Letnz in November of 2020 following the revelation of an extramarital affair, but pivots into the incarnation of the Hillsong empire and its founders Brian Houston and his father Frank Houston. This is a cautionary tale that churches should not be run like corporations putting profit and power over people and that if we put our faith in humans, instead of Christ, it is bound to fail.

BOOK: Less Than Human

The majority of humans would agree that murder is wrong and yet human history is littered with genocide, whole populations being kidnapped and enslaved, and wars replete with ghastly atrocities. How is it that we can say the murder of another human is terrible, but in an instant dehumanize a fellow human and perform, or at least allow, dehumanizing acts? In Less Than Human author David Livingstone Smith pulls from history, biology, philosophy, and anthropology to perform an in-depth analysis of defining dehumanization and why we seem predisposed to dehumanizing others.

BOOK: Untrustworthy

The late pastor James Atwood believed guns to be the biggest problem facing the American church. Author Jemar Tisby argues that racism and white supremacy are. In Untrustworthy, Bonnie Kristian asserts the largest problem facing American churches is epistemic (epistemic — of or relating to knowledge or knowing).  According to Kristian — the poisons of cancel culture, conspiracy theories, and skepticism of experts in conjunction with social media algorithms incentivized to make money at all costs are the largest problems facing the American church. Kristian posits that if we can’t agree on whom to trust or what is true then everything else is a moot point.

BOOK: Cannabis and the Christian

“Cannabis is the good provision of a kind and benevolent God. It is not inherently evil,” professor of Theology at Western Seminary Todd Miles says. But, before you drive down to your local dispensary Miles has much more to say on the subject in Cannabis and the Christian

Quotes

“To the extent that propaganda is based on current news, it cannot permit time for thought or reflection. A man caught up in the news must remain on the surface of the event; he is carried along in the current, and can at no time take a respite to judge and appreciate; he can never stop to reflect. There is never any awareness -- of himself, of his condition, of his society -- for the man who lives by current events.”

Jacques Ellul, theologian

“It is a core part of our mission to offer thoughts and prayers. But our prayers must include confession and the promise of repentance, hope and the plea for strength to do what is right, a calling to account of those in power-- especially when we hold power ourselves -- and the admonition of evil and yearning for the kingdom of God.”

Rosalind C. Hughes, Episcopal priest

“Looking to the government to define good and evil, what is wise and profitable and what is not, is a bad idea. Civil law is not a reliable indicator of what God approves or of what he disapproves. The Christian is going to have to dig deeper into God's laws to make such judgements.”

Todd Miles, theology professor

“People need to be taught how to live as part of a body, how to understand and live out our roles as a member of a church, citizen of a nation, and resident of a community. In our self-centered, narcissistic, individuaistic, expressionist age, we are incompetent in the arts of living together.  We may be naturally social and political animals, but we still have to acquire the cultivated virtues of citizens. Churches must help form us into better political animals.”

Paul D. Miller, American author

“If you’re willing to sin to obtain your goal or if you sin when you don’t get what you want, then your desire has taken God’s place and you’re functioning as an idolater.”

Elyse Fitzpatrick, author