One Church Said Yes to Perinatal Wellness @NJShorePatch

Rachel McKibben’s experience with Postpartum Psychosis inspired her to accept help on behalf of others. Regional Perinatal Consortium of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (RPCMOC) health educator Amy Goldberg mailed 600 fliers to local religious organizations offering her program… Read More

Jersey Shore Churches Preparing for a Celebration @NJShorePatch

  Long before MTV popularized a negative caricature of the Jersey Shore with its Seaside Heights reality show, a fourth grade teacher from Belford was worried about what kind of community his three young children would grow up in…. Read More

Who Gets the Money? @UrbanFaith

Are Christian donors less likely to write checks to minority-run ministries? Anecdotal evidence from the world of nonprofit fundraising suggests there’s a race-based disparity in giving. Trust is vital to any relationship, but when it comes to funding… Read More

Seeing ‘The Invisible’ @UrbanFaith

If the poor will always be with us, as Jesus said, then why don’t we always see them? Learning from “the least of these” with author and urban ministry leader Arloa Sutter. Two stories stand out in Arloa… Read More

Prosperity Gospel: Will Jesus Buy Me a Double Wide or What? @TheHuffingtonPost

I had a great time interviewing Karen Zacharias for this article. She’s not only a wonderful storyteller who writes about things that matter, she’s also feisty, generous, and smart. You should read her book; it’s engaging and thoughtful…. Read More

Flashes of Light in the Darkest Depths: The Faith and Life of Blind Photographer Pete Eckert @TheHuffingtonPost

Pete Eckert is a unique artist featured in the documentary Dark Light: The Art of Blind Photographers. I reviewed the film earlier this year and talked to Eckert afterward about his spiritual and artistic journey. Here’s our conversation,… Read More

How Far Should Forgiveness Go? @ChristianityToday

My Christianity Today essay on forgiving corrupt clergy is now available online. It begins like this: “Forgiving love is a possibility only for those who know that they are not good, who feel themselves in need of divine… Read More

Domestic Abuse: Coming to a Church Near You @Her.meneutics

“How long am I to remain in this relationship?” This is the haunting question 65-year-old Glenda Crosley asks in the documentary, Sin by Silence, about the abusive husband she killed in 1986. She has been in prison for… Read More

Ordained Into Wet Cement: What Does ‘Anglican’ Mean? Not @TheRevealer after all

Way back in August, when Becky Garrison wrote a little article “Ordained Into the Abstract: What Does Anglican Mean?” for The Revealer, which describes itself as “a daily review of religion and media,” I tweeted that I disagreed… Read More

Deep Church: A Short Review

When I heard that Jim Belcher’s book, Deep Church, was getting a lot of buzz from diverse quarters of the evangelical and post-evangelical community, my ears perked up. The Emerging/Emergent discussion was completely off my radar screen until… Read More

Speak the word only and my soul shall be healed.

  I spend a good deal of time defending evangelicals, both in the real world and in the virtual one. I’ve begun to realize, however, that I’m often defending aspects of evangelicalism that I don’t care for myself. For example,… Read More

Losing Religion; Finding Art and More

     Yesterday, my husband and I attended a book signing by former L.A. Times  journalist William Lobdel . The signing took place at a book store in historic Clinton, New Jersey .  The book (Lobdell’s first) is Losing My Religion: How I Lost… Read More