courage

We usually think of strength in physical terms. But the Bible often speaks of strength in reference to faith in God. This is seen at the end of the book of Deuteronomy, which contains Moses’ farewell sermon to Israel as the people of God prepared to enter the Promised Land. Moses reminded Israel...

A civil war erupted within broad evangelicalism, and the idol of LGBTQ+ is dividing the house. This issue is personal, political, and spiritual for me. In 1998, I became one of the first crop of so-called “tenured radicals” in American universities, proudly touting my lesbian street cred. In 1999,...

Pablo Besson - For the Gospel and Religious Freedom When Pablo (then Paul) Besson received a request from Mathieu Floris, a Belgian emigrant to Argentina, to help him find an evangelist to spread the gospel in that country, he did his best to promote the cause. When no one answered, he understood...

Rebecca Protten and the First Black Protestant Church in the Americas When seven-year-old Rebecca Protten was kidnapped from her family home in Antigua, she couldn’t possibly imagine that her new life in the island of St. Thomas, a Danish sugar colony in the West Indies, would become a catalyst for...

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us many things. One of those things that has stood out to me has been the realization of how many of us are absolutely driven by fear. We all remember how the toilet paper aisle at the grocery store went empty the moment lockdowns became a possibility. And it wasn’t...

Janani Luwum – A Ugandan Martyr In 1977, the assassination of Anglican Archbishop Janani Luwum shocked the world. Since his military coup in 1971, the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin had been sowing terror around the country. A Muslim, he allowed Christianity in his country only in three forms: Roman...

Have you ever heard people say , I just can’t help myself! ? We live in a culture where we often blame shift – to other people, to our circumstances, or to some aspect of ourselves which we think provides an excuse for our lack of self-control. Consider the things we often hear people say when they...

Goodness is a word that can obviously mean upright. Think of the oft used comparison between good and evil. But the word can also point up the benefit or qualities possessed by another. We might say something like, “The teachers are good here.” Of course, by that we mean that the teachers are the...

Constancy is something every human being craves. Knowing that, in the midst of all the upheaval and change that marks the course of life, there are anchor-points that provide stability along the way. But where can we find such certainty? It is an issue we become more acutely aware of as one year...

About one year ago while lying in bed I whispered to God in desperation: “ I am so afraid.” It was the most heightened sense of dread I had ever experienced (and I and my household had already made it through some pretty horrific times over the last half decade). Then the voices of children from a...