Religious Freedom in Florida: Let’s Be #1

Religious Freedom in Florida: Let’s Be #1

A version of this editorial originally appeared in The Orlando Sentinel on March 15, 2023 Florida tops many list of rankings.   One hopes we would rank number one when it comes to religious liberty. Florida currently ranks fourth in the nation in religious liberty behind Mississippi, Illinois, and New Mexico, according to The Center … Read more

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Common Grace: Waning Grace? (1/5)

This blog is one of a five-part series of articles on Common Grace. Common Grace is not often a topic for sermons or conversations, and yet it is vital if we hope to “live by faith not as a single act, but something habitual and permanent.” (David Clarkson, Works) Americans have good reason as of … Read more

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The Romanticism of Uncontacted Peoples Isn’t So Romantic

In Death of a Missionary Tunku Varadarajan criticizes the motivation and seeming foolishness of missionary John Allen Chau, the young man recently killed by the North Sentinel Islanders as Chau attempted to bring them the Christian Gospel. Varadarajan defends an anthropological theory popular with many concerning uncontacted people groups. The uncontacted peoples theory argues that … Read more

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Processing in the Inaugural Prayer Service: America! America!

  America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law! –America the Beautiful (Katharine Lee Bates)   It had been a long glorious morning full of adrenaline, symbolism, and splendid pomp and circumstance. Then we sang the second stanza of the hymn “America the Beautiful.” Confirming my soul … Read more

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Star Wars & the Bible

My colleague, Jack Peebles, loves the Star Wars movie saga. I thought I was a fan, and I am. Yet, Jack has shown me new heights of character appreciation, plot connection, and theological meaning. The recent release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story allowed Jack and me to dig ever more deeply into this … Read more

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From the Analakely Market to the NYSE (2/2)

Business as Mission Paved the Faith & Work Path (2/2) ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar – As I sit here in awe at the fruitfulness of a business as mission (BAM) program in its sixth year of growth, Biblical Entrepreneurship, I ask myself, “How did this work 25 hours away by plane, and worlds away in culture and … Read more

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From the Analakely Market to the NYSE (1/2)

From the Analakely Market to the NYSE: Business as Mission Paved the Faith & Work Path ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar – I am writing from the end of a continent; to some, the end of the earth: the island nation of Madagascar. Out my hotel window is the historic Analakely Market in the capital city known affectionately … Read more

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David Brooks is Wrong About Jeremy Lin

David Brooks, a columnist I enjoy reading and greatly admire, made the case in Friday’s New York Times that a faith driven athlete is a problem. I have a problem with that. Brooks contends the moral ethos of sport is contradictory to the moral ethos of faith, a term in which he carelessly lumps together … Read more

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Voting Patterns Based on Faith: We Need Honest Media Portrayal

The presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney and John Huntsman have raised the specter of a first for a US president: one who is a Mormon. Certainly after 44 presidents of Protestant faith affiliation, with exception for the lone Roman Catholic in John F. Kennedy, this would be a marked difference for our country. As well, … Read more

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What I’ve Learned as a Pastor Since 9/11

I slept late the morning of 9/11. A caller on the phone alerted me to turn on the TV; supposedly a small twin engine plane had veered off course and crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. Within minutes, I witnessed live on NBC’s Today Show as the second plane hit, this time … Read more

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