Oklahoma bill would abolish state’s role in granting marriage licenses, leave it in clergy hands
The bill would require court clerks to issue certificates of marriage signed by ordained clergy or affidavits of common-law marriage.
The Hidden Compliment From Critics of Christian Hypocrisy
That is the question that reveals how the charge against Christian hypocrisy, though exceptionally fierce, harbors a hidden compliment. Outrage over Christian hypocrisy says: We expect more from Christians.
Christians worship a King whose standard was, by all measures, “unreasonable” and idealistic. Reading the Sermon on the Mount is like getting hit by a two-by-four, and then in the daze that follows, being filled with inexplicable hope: There’s a kingdom like this?
The Small Politics of the Church
This imperative distinguishes the church from conservative and liberal/progressive Christian politics, which can be tempted by theocratic impulses and, thus, contaminated by Constantinianism and the temptations of Empire.
Being the church–really being the the church–is a political intervention, the church is a counter-politics to the politics of the State. Which means that to think politically in the church is to think locally, focusing on addressing our social and moral ills within the common life of the local congregation.
How the U.S. compares with the rest of the world on religious restrictions
Indeed, according to a recent Pew Research Center study – the sixth annual report in a series – the U.S. has moderate levels of both restrictions on religion and social hostilities toward religious groups, ranking somewhere in the middle range of the nearly 200 countries analyzed in the report.
Heaven Tourism Books Pulled from Nearly 200 Christian Bookstores
LifeWay Christian Resources has stopped selling all “experiential testimonies about heaven” following consideration of a 2014 Southern Baptist Convention resolution on “the sufficiency of Scripture regarding the afterlife.”
Why Good People Don’t Go to Heaven
If a person wants to spend eternity in heaven, his only hope is to respond to the Good News of Jesus Christ in faith and allow the blood of Jesus Christ to wash him clean. Good people don’t go to heaven; saved people do!
4 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me in My Twenties
- Don’t Just Chase Passion, Look for Opportunity
- Your Best Mentor Is Right in Front of You
- Ideas Are Cheap, Action Is Costly
- It’s Not About You
9 Ways to be a Better Neighbor
Yet neighborliness is a good thing for its own sake. Yes, it might be inconvenient or feel unnatural at first, but this is hospitality at its most basic, and one of the few ways in our increasingly segmented world to know people who aren’t extremely like ourselves. We’re not kids who have to worry about stranger danger anymore—and honestly, America is safer than it has been in decades. Statistically, our neighbors are probably very nice people.
As Christians, we often like to think about “loving our neighbor” in light of the story of the Good Samaritan, in which Jesus made all humanity our neighbors. But sometimes I think we forget that includes our literal neighbors, too—people who are uniquely positioned to casually share our lives.
Tom Hanks Just Recreated All Of His Movies In A Single Take. And It’s Awesome
Fans of Tom Hanks are going to go nuts over this. One of the greatest actors of all time just reenacted scenes from all of his famous movies in just one, seven-minute take!