The masculinity movement is now an entire industry with books, seminars, and speakers. The movement has grown up around notions of “biblical manhood,” but in reality, it reinforces worldly ideas of masculinity and femininity. A whole generation of boys and men today...
Christian Spirituality and Public Life
The Death of Vengeance, the Birth of Grace: Unlearning the Language of Vengeance
The language of vengeance has become fluent in our time. It fills our feeds, our politics, our conversations. It thrives in the chants of rallies, the venom of comment threads, and the conversations of resentment at family tables. Its grammar is simple: They hurt...
Pulling Back from the Brink: A Spiritual Path Beyond Toxic Politics
The air feels charged with anger. Outrage spreads like fire through our feeds. Families split across political lines, friends grow suspicious, neighbors draw the curtains. In many Western nations, democracy itself groans under the weight of distrust, misinformation,...
Mystical Marriage and Modern Marriages
The ancient prophets spoke of a love so relentless that it could only be described in the language of marriage. Hosea, standing heartbroken yet hopeful, described God as a faithful spouse betrothing us “forever . . . in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast...
Activism with a Monk’s Heart: Thurman’s Secret for Sustainable Justice
Righteous anger rises in the streets as protesters chant for justice. In the United States, Black Lives Matter rallies cry out against systemic racism. In Australia, voices lift for First Nations dignity and reconciliation. The church professes that it should be “no...
Missions on the Move: Ten Global Shifts in Christian Mission
This week, I did a radio interview on ten global shifts in Christian mission. Here’s the transcript. Introduction Host: Hello and welcome! Today, we’re exploring the changes worldwide in Christian mission: the new directions and trends shaping how the church engages...
Slavery, Freedom, and the Crucified Christ: A Christian Spiritual Response
Some voices today insist that slavery was a long-ago blight with little bearing on our present, even suggesting its impacts are exaggerated. They want us to stop talking about slavery so much and focus on the pleasant parts of our national or collective history....
The Wounds That See: Empathy Shaped by the Cross
In some corners of the church, empathy is treated with suspicion. Critics argue that it makes us vulnerable to manipulation or risks replacing truth with sentiment. They say that empathy can slide into permissiveness, blurring moral clarity. Others fear it elevates...
Christ Without a Flag: Following Jesus in an Age of Christian Nationalism
A Kingdom Without Borders Christian nationalism is the great confusion of our age. It fuses the cross and the flag, the gospel and the state, and the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world. Christian nationalism takes the beauty of the faith and dresses it in...
I Was a Stranger and You Welcomed Me: The Cross of Christ and Our Response to Undocumented Immigrants
The Cross of Christ and Our Response to Undocumented Immigrants A Kingdom at the Border The border isn’t only a line in the sand or a fence cutting across hills. It’s also a place where theology bleeds. It’s where fear meets flesh, where the policies of nations touch...
Between Two Tears: Christian Spirituality and the Israel–Gaza War
A Wound That Speaks This isn't a post for comfort. This is a post for witness. The Israel–Gaza war is a wound that bleeds on both sides: blood that calls us to lament, not slogans. Children starve in Gaza, hostages lie in captivity, cities crumble, lives vanish. Yet...
Unshackled: Breaking Addiction’s Chains through God’s Grace
On July 23, 2025, I will celebrate twenty years sober, having struggled with alcohol addiction for over a decade before I was finally free in July 2005. I’m writing a book on my experience in the hope it’ll encourage others, called Unshackled: Breaking Addiction’s...