Where Christianity intersects with politics, culture, and entertainment.
More than 28,000 people were in line on Saturday, March 16, to tour The Ark, a Noah's Ark-inspired children's building at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. The Ark's public grand opening was held on March 16, and on March 17 it opened its doors to 13 Sunday school classes and an 840-person worship room…
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“Have you hugged a pastor today!?” Without waiting for an answer or even an introduction, Rick Warren, megachurch minister and bestselling author, crosses his Manhattan hotel suite and swallows me up in a teddy-bearish embrace. A coterie of aides and handlers look on in amusement but not surprise. Warren is all about the agape, and…
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At “Miracle-Seed Sunday” in Singapore’s New Creation Church last month, the pastor’s sermon was preceded by PowerPoint and video presentations, and donations were overseen by auditors. Centuries after Catholics established missions in Asia, Singaporeans are flocking to a new species of churches making appeals more in common with “Material Girl” pop-singer Madonna than the Jesuits.…
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The house lights go down. Spinning, multicolored lights sweep the auditorium. A rock band launches into a rousing opening song. "Ignore everyone else, this time is just about you and Jesus," proclaims the lead singer. The music changes to a slow dance tune, and the people sing about falling in love with Jesus. A guitarist…
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The Rev. Jerry Falwell’s name will always be linked with the Moral Majority, the organization he formed to galvanize conservative evangelicals into political action. Certainly, bringing evangelicals out of the cultural wilderness and marching them into politics changed both the political and the religious landscape in important and enduring ways. One needs only to look…
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by Jesse Locken Mark Driscoll and his Seattle megachurch Mars Hill (MHC) has continued to draw increasing attention in the press, typically in reference to controversy. Whether it’s Driscoll’s views on male/female relationships and marriage, Mars Hill’s “church discipline” practices, and even acts of vandalism to church property, it seems as if there is no…
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The emergence of the megachurch as a model of metropolitan ministry is one of the defining marks of evangelical Christianity in the United States. Megachurches – huge congregations that attract thousands of worshipers – arrived on the scene in the 1970s and quickly became engines of ministry development and energy. Over the last 40 years,…
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I spend a good deal of time thinking about the church and faith on various levels. I love church history, and looking at trends, practices, and the evolution of what we call Christianity. It’s impossible for me to remove my own personal experience from that equation, as a guy who grew up in a liturgical,…
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The Sunday morning service at Fellowship Church in Dallas, Texas, was humming along with hymns and prayers when something unusual happened. The lights in the sanctuary suddenly dimmed, and members of the church hushed as they peered at a pulpit shrouded in darkness. The parishioners then erupted in cheers and whistles as Ed Young Sr.,…
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