It is rare that your ex-boyfriend’s sister becomes your maid of honor.  That is what happened when I married my college sweetheart almost twelve years ago in a little church in New Haven, Connecticut. My friend, Laura, held the train of my dress and raised her champagne glass to toast my marriage. Yesterday Laura sent…

“As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew.  They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.'”  At once they left their nets and followed him.”  Matthew…

“If anyone speaks a word against the son of man, it will be forgiven.  But if anyone speaks a word against the Holy Spirit, it won’t be forgiven, either in the present age or in the age to come” (Matthew 12:32).  Every once in a while when my son expresses his dissatisfaction with the Dover…

The following religion-related typos on the final exam papers that my husband is currently grading made me chuckle.  Here they are for your edification, accompanied by our editorial remarks: “Jesus made the long walk to Calgary.”  (Did he cross the Polar Ice Cap to reach it?) “The religion of Islam has several different types of…

Fellow saints and sinners, today was to feature a weird Jesus saying, but something profound happened yesterday that I have to tell you about. Because it is not every day that I get propositioned by a prostitute.  In fact, yesterday evening at the Citgo gas station in inner-city Atlanta was a first. I didn’t see…

“I want Jesus!,” my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter exclaimed the other day, as she grasped for the ceramic baby Jesus in the nativity scene on our kitchen table. These days when advertisers prostitute themselves for our dollars and every manner of holiday festivity competes for our time, my daughter’s un-self-conscious exclamation reminds me of what I really…

Much has been written about ministry and sex, sexuality, gender and, of most immediate and grave importance here, what to wear when you find yourself young, female and in ordained ministry.  The question has been so well-traversed that it can be tiresome. Those of us who find ourselves “in the business” know the familiar line,…

Today is the 70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Probably the closest thing for my generation to that surprise attack by Japanese planes on Pearl Harbor in the year 1941 is 9/11.  On Saturday evening a friend and I visited the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero. When the taxi dropped us off at the entrance, we…

When gay singer George Michael recently put off his tour because of a bad case of pneumonia that landed him in the intensive care unit at the hospital and drew family and long-time partner Fadi Fawaz to his sick bed, members of the group, “Christians for a Moral America,” reportedly prayed for Michael to die…

More from Beliefnet and our partners
More from Beliefnet and our partners