While I have interacted with Celsus quite a bit over the years, I was recently reading through his True Doctrine again. And I was surprised by one of his critiques that I had never really noticed before.
Celsus did not reject Christianity merely because he found historical problems in the Gospels or found the idea of incarnation to be incoherent. He found the Christian religion to be problematic also because of the degree to which Christians fought and argued with one another.
For Celsus, these were no minor squabbles. He saw the early Christian movement as characterized by their in-fighting....
The divide tearing America apart just hit a new extreme: Conservative
The word "polarization" was being used to describe the United States' political environment long before Donald Trump launched the MAGA movement with his 2016 campaign. During the 2004 presidential election, quite a few political journalists stressed that liberal and progressive urban Americans and rural Republicans were living in two different worlds. And 12 years before that, during his 1992 presidential campaign, paleoconservative Patrick Buchanan (a major influence on Trump and MAGA) said the U.S. was in the middle of a "culture war."
But Never Trump conservative David French, in his March 15 column for the New York Times, argues that the United States' political polarization is entering an even more dangerous phase than before.
MAGA churches are flouting the law with impunity: report
President Donald Trump and his supporters are engaging in “more overt” defiance of laws prohibiting nonprofits like churches from explicit partisan activity — and this is because, one journalist alleges, MAGA is run by Christian nationalists.
The little-known story of the woman who rescued Mothering Sunday
15 March 2026, or the fourth Sunday in Lent, is Mothering Sunday in Britain and Ireland. The tradition nearly died and was rescued by a determined vicar’s daughter about a hundred years ago. This is the story....
Mother’s Day: reflecting the serving heart of God
March 15 marks Mother’s Day in the UK - a special day set aside to honour the love, effort and sacrifice of mothers and motherly figures in our lives. It is a moment to pause and recognise those who have nurtured us, cared for us and quietly carried burdens for our sake.
Motherhood reveals something deeply profound about the nature of love. In many ways, being a parent is one of the closest human experiences to God’s heart for mankind.
Mother’s Day: Love that stands
Mother’s Day is a beautiful pause in the calendar. Cards are written. Flowers are bought. Restaurants are fully booked.
And somewhere, I suspect, heaven smiles because whenever we honour sacrificial love, we are echoing the heart of God.
Motherhood is one of the clearest reflections of divine love on earth. Gentle and strong. And when I think of a mother in the Bible who embodies that strength wrapped in surrender, one name rises above the rest: Mary, mother of Jesus.
Who Is Watching Out for You?
Pastor, you probably know what it’s like to watch over others while quietly feeling unseen yourself. You help people stay steady in temptation, grief, conflict, and doubt. You pray for them, counsel them, and carry burdens you cannot always share.
So here is a Monday-morning question worth asking: Who is watching out for you?
Plan an Abundant Holy Week with Your Neighbors
Last year, six Episcopal churches in our corner of southern Virginia advertised 37 services between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. The year before, it was 34. We did everything: the Proper Liturgies, Monday to Wednesday in Holy Week, Stations of the Cross, Tenebrae, and one shared Great Vigil of Easter. To someone seeing our collective Facebook posts or shared fliers at the coffee shop, we didn’t look like a dying tradition struggling to keep the lights on. We looked alive, full-throated, like we offered something worth people’s attention.
This didn’t happen because any one of our parishes is particularly large or well-resourced. It happened because we sat down together in late January, opened our calendars, and hammered out a schedule. We already live and worship near each other, so why not pool our energies in the holiest week of the year?
I’m writing to invite you—whether you’re clergy, a senior warden, a retired priest doing supply work, or anyone who loves your church and wants to see it thrive—try this. This year. Start now. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s faithful. Not because you have spare energy, but because this is the mission.
Sam Sheridan has point.Making the Leap: Is It Time to Add Another Worship Service?
A new worship service will either thrive under healthy systems and culture or be strained by its fragility.
Pipe organs could be extinct by 2070
Pipe Up, a charity devoted to the preservation of organs, has warned that every year over 400 church organs are going unused or even being scrapped every year.
A spokesperson for the group said, "A cultural catastrophe is staring Britain in the face: the imminent loss of its pipe organs," reports the BBC.
Five Hidden Costs of Digital Convenience in the Local Church
...convenience is a helpful tool. It is a dangerous foundation.
When convenience becomes central, something subtle begins to shift in the culture of a church.
Let me share five hidden costs I am seeing.
Many US adults are skipping parenting or having fewer kids – and it’s forcing schools to close
At a February board meeting for Memphis-Shelby county schools in Tennessee, a parent of five children who currently or formerly attended Ida B Wells Academy, an alternative education school, asked board members a question.
“This is a high-performing school. This is not a school in crisis,” she said. “So I respectfully ask, why are we considering closing a school that is working?”
What Singles Need from Married Friends
While it’s true some singles struggle with contentment, plenty find joy and fulfillment.
Singles’ accomplishments can easily go unnoticed without a spouse to share them with. The same can be true of grief.
Does Attracting A Crowd Make Discipleship Harder?
Drawing a crowd to church may not be the best way to start people on a path to discipleship.
In fact, it may hurt our discipleship efforts more than help them.
When a person’s first encounter with the gospel (and their second, and their one-hundredth) is as a member of a crowd they can get a twisted perception of what discipleship means. They start to think that Christianity is about being a passive observer, consumer, and judge of religious content.
When we try to make the shift from that to discipleship it can feel like the ol’ bait-and-switch.
Implement Intergenerational Discipleship in Your Church
What might it look like to cultivate intergenerational discipleship for children and youth in your local church?
A spokesperson for the group said, "A cultural catastrophe is staring Britain in the face: the imminent loss of its pipe organs," reports the BBC.
Five Hidden Costs of Digital Convenience in the Local Church
...convenience is a helpful tool. It is a dangerous foundation.
When convenience becomes central, something subtle begins to shift in the culture of a church.
Let me share five hidden costs I am seeing.
Many US adults are skipping parenting or having fewer kids – and it’s forcing schools to close
At a February board meeting for Memphis-Shelby county schools in Tennessee, a parent of five children who currently or formerly attended Ida B Wells Academy, an alternative education school, asked board members a question.
“This is a high-performing school. This is not a school in crisis,” she said. “So I respectfully ask, why are we considering closing a school that is working?”
What Singles Need from Married Friends
While it’s true some singles struggle with contentment, plenty find joy and fulfillment.
Singles’ accomplishments can easily go unnoticed without a spouse to share them with. The same can be true of grief.
Does Attracting A Crowd Make Discipleship Harder?
Drawing a crowd to church may not be the best way to start people on a path to discipleship.
In fact, it may hurt our discipleship efforts more than help them.
When a person’s first encounter with the gospel (and their second, and their one-hundredth) is as a member of a crowd they can get a twisted perception of what discipleship means. They start to think that Christianity is about being a passive observer, consumer, and judge of religious content.
When we try to make the shift from that to discipleship it can feel like the ol’ bait-and-switch.
Implement Intergenerational Discipleship in Your Church
What might it look like to cultivate intergenerational discipleship for children and youth in your local church?
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