Congregationalism & Churches
Biblical Hebrew uses similar names for “vanity” and the slain brother. That’s no accident. “Meaningless! Meaningless!” So says Qohelet, the author of Ecclesiastes, as he begins his reflections. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” For many, these words resound with a skeptical and, some may say, nihilistic tone. But must they? Russell L. Meek, a gifted… Read More
Denhollander and Russell Moore respond to the third-party investigation of sexual abuse in the SBC. Rachael Denhollander is horrified by the information inside the monumental third-party investigative report into sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). But she’s not surprised. “The most sobering part,” Denhollander tells CT public thologian Russell Moore, “is that we… Read More
While Presbyterian Church in Taiwan has historic ties to the push for independence, most Chinese congregations in the US avoid highlighting the ongoing political polarization. As soon as they heard that a gunman attacked a Taiwanese church in California on Sunday, some Taiwanese correctly assumed political motives. The clash between the desire for Taiwan’s independence… Read More
Baptism tallies, though, are beginning to recover from 2020’s pandemic plunge. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has lost over a million members in the past three years, with back-to-back years of the COVID-19 pandemic following a decade-plus of decline. Reported SBC membership fell to 13.7 million in 2021, its lowest tally in more than 40… Read More
Scripture attests that the contributions of motherhood to our society extend far beyond the home. As Mother’s Day rolls around again, so do the memes and articles trying to calculate the value of the work that mothers do. In 2021, for example, Salary.com estimated the median annual salary of a stay-at-home mom to be $… Read More
Bill Hwang is at the center of what white-collar crime experts see as Wall Street’s biggest indictment since Bernie Madoff. When the founder of Archegos Capital Management, Bill Hwang, was charged in a multibillion-dollar criminal case last week, the federal district attorney said the Christian investor’s “massive fraud … nearly jeopardized our financial system.” The… Read More
The leaner denomination will focus on international partnerships, but many conservatives in Africa are holding out for the much-delayed 2024 conference vote. Methodist congregations that know their future is not in the United Methodist Church (UMC) officially have a new place to land: the Global Methodist Church (GMC). Launching on May 1, the new denomination… Read More
Torn between “pro-Putin” and “pro-prayer,” only a minority have spoken out publicly against the invasion. Ukrainian seminary leaders call for repentance. Russian sermons—to the extent legally possible—reflect the national mood. “Honor the tsar!” preached Alexey Novikov of Land of Freedom Pentecostal church in Moscow two days after the February 24 Russian invasion of Ukraine, quoting… Read More