Janelle writes a poem about the hidden hatred in all of us, and what the solution is. ...

I watched a man die once. It was not an experience I’ve ever wanted to repeat again. He was a quiet, pleasant patient whom I had taken care of a few times since he had been placed within our unit. That day, my friend was his nurse. She called me in to come help her, stating he was having difficulty breathing. Sure enough, he was in his recliner gasping for breath. As she...

Modest dress is a worthy discussion (after all, the Bible does talk about it!) but modesty includes far more than what can be seen on the outside. In fact, the definition of modest is not “Women who dress culturally appropriate.” Rather, the definition is “the quality of being modest; freedom from vanity, boastfulness, etc.” I didn’t see “Modest is hottest” a...

“Oh, great,” said everyone. “Another church railing against promiscuity, homosexuality, and how society is going to hell in a handbasket. Just what I want to read today (this is not what I want to read today).” I know there is something archaic and cliché to read a blog post about sexual ethics from an evangelical church. Having admitted that, I hope you’ll bear...

There are reasons to respect Phil Robertson, the patriarch of the family at the center of AMC’s blockbuster hit Duck Dynasty. He was a good enough athlete to start over 4-time Super Bowl champion Terry Bradshaw while in college even though he didn’t think much about practice. He was, by his own admission, a borderline alcoholic and druggie until he was miraculously sav...

When I decided to go to law school, I received many comments like “Are you going to be one of the ones who keeps the criminals off the street?” and “Nice. So you’re going to get the bad guys and make sure they pay.” At the time, I had no difficulty with these statements. Though I had no intention of pursuing a career in criminal law, I figured that if I did, it w...

An automated spiritual gifts test once assumed I was a man. It was a generic test, so at the end, the tally of my results indicated (to the formula of the test results) that I should serve as a teaching pastor or lead men’s ministry. I cried, and the elder leading our class had no idea how to console me. In his mumbling, he said this, “God didn’t mess up and you aren...

My cousin Doug Hodges (pretty much a big brother to the Phillips kids), pointed me to an article he had come across recently by a gentleman named Thomas Umstattd Jr. regarding why he felt like courtship, as opposed to traditional dating, was fundamentally flawed. Since the article was very thorough, if haphazard, and encapsulated a lot of the criticism I have heard of cour...

Our culture gets it wrong when it comes to women and image. That is no surprise, and much has been said on the topic. Recently the Huffington Post did a piece on what tabloids would look like if they treated men the way they treated women. Westminster College has a well-researched article about beauty standards, women in the media, and how women internalize the “thin-bea...

In Part 1 of the #CulturalValues post about Immigration, Joey pointed out that fundamentally, Christians should think about this issue through the lens of Jesus’ teaching about the “least of these.” Our primary concern about this issue should be for people, not fences. It’s important to remember that neither of us are advocating for a specific policy position. Our ...