Note: The following piece is an excerpt from an article that originally appeared in Relevant Magazine.

On April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. sat quietly in a Birmingham City Jail cell. He had been arrested during a non-violent protest against the racial segregation of downtown retailers organized by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human...

Last week, I published an article for Relevant Magazine on why I believe America is an exceptional nation, but I am not an “American Exceptionalist.” Not everyone took kindly to the piece because they either felt like I was being unpatriotic or unfair in my argument. One such detractor was Eric Teetsel of the American Enterprise Institute. Eric...

This July 4th, like every other I remember, I’m going to a birthday party for a nation. On that day 235 years ago, a ragtag band of patriots declared they would no longer submit to the tyranny of a foreign monarch, and Americans have been celebrating ever since. But July 4th, 2011 is unlike any other birthday party I’ll attend this year, and...

This article was originally published on RelevantMagazine.com.

In 1969, a Democratic Senator from Wisconsin had a novel idea that would change the world. In response to the Santa Barbara oil spill, Gaylord Nelson proposed a holiday for the environment. Environmental concerns existed at the street level in that time, but they had never...

The 7th anniversary of the war in Iraq seems like an appropriate time to seriously look at and think through the morality of war. In Afghanistan and Iraq, war is dragging on at a pace even Aesop might question, and Christians have reignited the age-old debate on how we should address war. Traditionally, this debate has had only two sides: Just...

This article was originally published on RelevantMagazine.com.

I don't know when it began. The moment when Napster launched, maybe. Whenever it was, it set off a cultural ripple infecting the masses with an insatiable desire for more, faster and free. It's called the free culture movement, and it advocates increased access to creative goods...

In the worlds of fashion, dance clubs and vacation destinations, exclusive is an attractive term. It invokes a sense of glamour and poshness. It makes one think of VIP rooms and all-you-can-eat buffets and clothes no one else has. But when it comes to salvation by faith, exclusive isn’t so pleasant.

Exclusive in this sense means that no matter...

Clearly, there is a mammoth difference between Christianity as Scripture describes and the Christian Universalist’s variation. And it is not simply a matter of preference; it is a matter of Scripture. “Anyone who affirms universalism has a problem with biblical authority and ultimately with Jesus, Peter and Paul,” says Daniel Akin, President of...

There is a growing belief among many that perhaps there are numerous ways to get to heaven outside of the Christian gospel. I have called it "The Rising Tide of Universalism," and I think we need to be talking about it. Recently, I published an article in Relevant Magazine exploring this phenomenon and I am bringing the conversation to you in a...

A fascinating article was published today by RelevantMagazine.com entitled "Are Christians Wrong about Gitmo?" The article was authored by Natalie and Tyler Wigg-Stevenson and cites two fascinating polls. The first was conducted by Mercer University in 2008 and concludes that a majority of white Southern Evangelicals thought that it was "often"...

If you want a break from the unbridled coverage of Michael Jackson's death and legacy, check out the Relevant article, "Vintage Green," by Kaylin King. The colloquial web exclusive opens with a story about King's grandmother to illustrate that living "green" often means rediscovering the way life used to be. "Not only did (my grandmother) sew...

The Associated Press is now reporting that it has uncovered secret statistics held by the Iraqi government showing 87,215 Iraqi citizens have been killed since 2005 as a result of everything from "catastrophic bombings to execution-style slayings." When tallied with records since 2003, it climbs to an estimated 110,600. (That number only...

Recently, I had the opportunity to screen Disneynature's debut film, Earth. I was so impressed by the movie that I wrote a review for Relevant. The movie is narrated by James Earl Jones and follows the lives of three animal families as they overcome amazing circumstances. The film is replete with life lessons and redemptive elements that...

Relevant Magazine has released their top nine shows to watch in 2009, and it is just about the best list top-to-bottom that I've seen. Make sure you read the paragraph about Flight of the Conchords. It was written by yours truly.

The staff at Relevant Magazine joined together with some of Relevant's writers, including myself, to compile a list of Relevant's Top 10 Films of 2008. I was happy to contribute to this because as a film addict, I have been disappointed in recent years with the hype-to-reality ratio of many films. This year, however, was an exceptional year...

If you watched the debate last night and managed to stay awake during the whole thing, you probably felt like I did: LAAAAAME! The questions were softball, the moderator was boring and the answers were nothing short of talking points. 

My reaction to Rick Warren's recent faith forum at Saddleback has published on RelevantMagazine.com. Both sides of the political fence were dissatisfied, but I doubt that surprises any of my regular readers. Angering everyone is becoming my M.O.

These days, Christianity carries so much baggage. Perhaps the worst piece of luggage is a little word we call "guilt." Nasty little thing, isn't it? As much as guilt has a place in the Christian life--after all, the conviction of the Holy Spirit is one of the marks of genuine conversion--it shouldn't overshadow the real gifts of salvation. I...

It is almost trendy these days to take a jab at the church. Floods of books have come out from gentle restoratives to outright polemics. Some regularly take her to task on public blogs while others just give her a good pop when no one is looking. Regardless, it is undeniable that there is a generation of disgruntled, dissilusioned followers who...

Perhaps I am being pretentious when I call Margaret Feinberg my "mentor," much less my "friend." Author of more than 30 life-changing books who has been named "one of the 30 emerging voices" that will lead our church into the next decade, Margaret is a gifted and respected author and speaker. Amazingly, meeting her for the first time is like...