Exploring Faith and Spirituality

Religion

College Minister, Consider Why Students Come to You for Counsel

A weary college freshman flops down across from me in the student center. He looks bedraggled and sleep-deprived. I wonder when he last showered. When I ask how his week is going, he talks about fa...

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7 Novels to Help You Think About Technology

Most of my reading is nonfiction. That habit is driven, in part, by necessity. As an elder who teaches Sunday school in the local church, I’m often deep into commentaries and monographs that help m...

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Growing in Spiritual Disciplines

Paul commanded Timothy, “Train yourself for godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7). The spiritual disciplines are essential to our growth into Christlike maturity, so we must learn to invest ourselves in these pa...

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Let the Bible’s Sexual Ethic Point You to Christ

We know that our culture’s sexual ethics are anything but biblical. Secular sources like Fox News, Human Rights Campaign, and USA Today report that 20–30 percent of Gen-Z Americans identify as LGBT...

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How Law and Culture Shape America’s Abortion Conscience

In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that closely held private companies like Hobby Lobby don’t have to provide abortifacient contraceptive drugs in their health coverage. The basis of the majorit...

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The Trouble with Watching Religious Trends

Here are two headlines you might have seen recently. In September, Barna Group announced, “Young Adults Lead a Resurgence in Church Attendance,” with Gen Z and millennials attending more frequently...

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Seminary Wives Need Each Other (More Than You May Think)

The Florida heat would have been enough to convince me to stay home. But it wasn’t the only reason I didn’t want to attend the seminary’s welcome-back supper. I was working two jobs and had no ener...

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Daniel Treier (1972–2025): A Theological Life

My friend, colleague, and former student Daniel Treier finished his earthly race on December 22, 2025, and Christmas for me will never be the same. In the Frank Capra film It’s a Wonderful Life, Ge...

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What We Learn from the Black Church About the Culture War

Here in Birmingham, Alabama, I often teach about the civil rights movement as the most effective faith-based movement for social change in American history. We have a bitter heritage of violent seg...

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Debunking 4 Justifications for Masturbation

I used to live entrenched in promiscuity and sexual sin. Masturbation and occasional pornography use were accepted, often-joked-about parts of life among my unbelieving friends. But after God lifte...

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Discover Life After Anti-Wokeness

In recent years, few issues have generated as much confusion and concern among evangelicals as those related to “wokeness.” Discussions around “wokeness” generate heat, but evangelicals need more l...

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On My Shelf: Life and Books with Stephen O. Presley

On My Shelf helps you get to know various writers through a behind-the-scenes glimpse into their lives as readers. I asked Stephen O. Presley—senior fellow for religion and public life at the Cent...

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Tolkien Prophesied the Smartphone

On July 29, 1954, a man prophesied the iPhone. His name was J. R. R. Tolkien. Only, he called it by a different name: the Ring of Power. Here’s how he described it (emphasis added): It would be a...

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Be Faithful at Work, Even When It’s Not Your Dream Job

After graduating from college this spring, I had four days of rest before jumping headlong into a full-time corporate position. People congratulated me on landing a job straight out of college—esp...

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Want a Calm and Quiet Soul? Psalm 131 Can Help.

In Psalm 131, King David writes about having “a calm and quiet soul.” Calm and quiet. Those certainly aren’t words I typically use to describe my soul. My husband and I relocated from Illinois to ...

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Aging in a Culture Obsessed with Youth

At a time when we typically live longer than any generation before us, it seems all we want to do is preserve our youth. From hair dye to microblading, antiaging creams to Botox, we negotiate with ...

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From Sermon to Article: Turning Oral Teaching into Written Content

Every week, you study the Scriptures, analyzing a narrative’s movements or the structure of an epistle’s argument. You prayerfully consider each text’s meaning and application. Then you put pen to ...

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How Politics Hijacked Nonprofits

Nonprofits have a long and storied history in the United States. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited this country in the 19th century, he intended to study its prisons. Instead, he wrote one of the ...

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How to Make Friends in Real Life

Courtney and Melissa talk with Christine Hoover about why we need friends and how to make them. They discuss how to get over the awkwardness of walking into a room where you don’t know anyone, why ...

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Rosalía’s Lux is more than epic Catholic pop – it grapples with a world fraught with complexity and crisis | Carlos Delclós

Behind its lavish ‘nun-core’ aesthetic, the Spanish star’s hit album pushes us to think beyond good and evil – to see that we contain multitudesI went into Lux primed not to like it. Not because I ...

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Sing About Exodus with the Psalmists

“Look how united America was!” “Good people around the world stood against tyranny.” “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” “That’s why they call it the greatest generation!” “Scie...

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