Saturday Night Sinnin’, Sunday Morning Salvation: The Life and Legacy of Johnny Cash
by Daniel Mann One of Johnny Cash’s closest friends referred to him as a “walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction,” and a cursory exploration of his life proves this statement.[1] Cash spent his early years as a son and soldier before embarking on a musical career as a performer and poet. Off stage, he was an addict and adulterer while seeking to maintain his religious persona as a Christian. No wonder his only son...
Light and Heat: A Balance for Ministry
I have had the privilege over the past decade to serve in ministerial and academic roles. Prior to becoming a college instructor, I was a full-time youth and family pastor. In 2014, I was hired at Welch College to lead their program in Youth and Family Ministry. Shortly thereafter, I became the Campus Pastor at Welch and began serving my local congregation in a part-time position as their youth and family pastor. To be on both sides...
Church-State Religious Accommodation: Reflections on Groff v. DeJoy
The coming months will bring attention to the biggest cases the Supreme Court is hearing this term, including issues like abortion, Chevron deference, consumer protection, Donald Trump, gerrymandering, guns (bump stock), social media, and more. As we prepare for the holdings on these cases, I thought it would be good to reflect on an important decision from last summer: Groff v. DeJoy. Groff did not receive as much attention as the...
The Genesis of Gender: A Review
“I feel like I’ve been giving my students poison to drink,” said Abigail Favale to a fellow professor as she reflected on years of teaching gender theory to college students.[1] “For so many years,” she confessed, “I’d been careless, careless with their minds and, most disturbingly, their souls.” Favale went on to describe her teaching career this way: “I’d often felt good about exposing my students to heady and trendy theories about...
Winter and Spring: Seasons of the Christian Life
March is the time for climbing out of winter. After snow, ice, freezing rain, and endless clouds, a sunny day at fifty degrees feels positively balmy. The forsythia is blooming. The daffodils have “curtsied up and down.”[1] It has been a long walk through the wilderness, and Easter is on the horizon. In the best years, the inner self begins to bloom again as well. Modern psychological man assumes he merely projects his own hopefulness...
Confessions of a Freed Will Baptist (No, that’s not a Misspelling)
In the Protestant tradition, a defense for the freedom of the will has historically fallen to the Arminians. As a matter of fact, Arminian Baptists in the United States were given the derogatory name free willers by their Calvinist brethren—the name stuck and became the official, and personally owned, name of the Free Will Baptists.[1] Let me be clear: I am proud of my Free Will Baptist heritage, and I proudly own the label today....
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