Over the last few years I’ve had the pleasure of being a guest on “PrimeTime America,” a program on Moody Radio hosted by Greg Wheatley. numerous times. Greg is now hosting a new program called “Inside Look” on Saturdays where he goes much deeper with a single guest for an hour. On Jan 15 I was his guest. The first half of the program focused on my background and a discussion of big trends in the church today. The second half was an exploration of my upcoming book, WITH: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God. Listen to the interview on the “Inside Look” website. (Some versions of Firefox may not play the audio file.)

I grew up in an interfaith family. I attended an evangelical church regularly with my mother, but was regularly exposed to the Hinduism of my father’s side of the family. At school I had friends who were Christian, Jewish, and Muslim. And yet during those formative years I heard virtually nothing from my Christian community about how to live alongside those of other faiths.

Today I am an ordained pastor within an evangelical denomination. And unfortunately many within my community are still unmotivated to talk, let alone cooperate, with those of other religions. But with roughly 30 percent of Americans identifying themselves as evangelicals, any hope of making progress on interfaith work must involve this community. In this post I have briefly outlined three reasons why I believe…

In Part 1 I shared my reasons for embarking on a one month Twitter experiment, as well as the parameters I set up for myself to help my stay on my goal of “tweeting for the sake of others.” In response to my first post, as well as critique of my original piece “Why I Don’t Tweet…Not That There’s Anything Wrong With It,” I had a number of folks argue that Twitter is really no different than blogging. Therefore, why am I so critical of Twitter and not blogs.

Fair question. So let’s begin there.

In the primitive ages of social media (circa 2003), sites like Blogger were incredibly popular. But a blog is a medium that says “Listen to me!” and it…

Last November I wrote a blog post titled “Why I Don’t Tweet…Not That There’s Anything Wrong With It.” The spark for the post came from a brief interaction with Ed Stetzer about Twitter. A prolific tweeterer (is that a word?), he was shocked to learn I didn’t tweet and wanted to know why. So I put fingers to keyboard and articulated 10 reasons–some were rooted in my understanding of faith and discipleship and others were clearly tongue in cheek (like #8: “Ashton Kutcher”).

I got a lot of traffic out of that post. Some applauded my reasons for not tweeting, others pointed out holes in my logic. Some incorrectly interpreted my post as condemning those who tweet despite my title clearly stating the opposite. One response came…

Scott Nehring has an article at Relevant asking a great question: why are Christian movies so bad? He describes Christian movies in terms many of us have heard before: “intellectually vacant,” “disconnected from reality,” he says they suffer from “substandard production values, stilted dialogue and childish plots.”So why are they so bad? According to Nehring the issue is evangelical isolationism. He says that dating back to the 1960s, many Christians became uncomfortable with popular culture and retreated into “cocoons”-safe places for Christians to hide from the big, bad culture and where they could discuss what they “hoped the world was like rather than dealing with how things are.”This isolation resulted in “poorly trained artists” and Christian filmmakers not “playing with the big boys.” He calls today’s

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What did Jesus mean when he said, “Judge not, and you will not be judged.” It’s one of the most commonly quoted verses from the bible (Luke 6:37). Many of us, and not merely politicians, invoke the verse as a first defense when accused of wrong. It is also a favorite stone thrown by those outside the church to accuse Christians of hypocrisy.

In 2007 a book was published called UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity. It’s based on research done among non-Christian 20-somethings. One of their core findings was that nearly nine out of ten young people view Christians as “judgmental.” And given the prohibition against judging issued by Jesus, this would mean most people view Christians as hypocrites.

Given these findings,…

[NOTE: This post originally appeared on The Washington Post's "On Faith" website.]

Governmental, religious, and cultural leaders on all sides have already spoken, written, or tweeted about the proposed Islamic cultural center near the World Trade Center site in Manhattan. So when my friend Eboo Patel asked me to add my voice to the noise, I wasn’t sure what new perspective I could offer.

An expert in constitutional law might see the Cordoba House controversy as a First Amendment issue and demand that the Muslim-Americans organizing the project be allowed to proceed without impediment. A politico might see the matter as an opportunity to score easy points with constituents (right or left) by supporting or denouncing the “Ground Zero mosque.” And a member of the media might…

This week crowds of worshipers outside Apple Stores around the globe will finally be able to lay their hands on the latest object of their devotion: the iPhone 4. The public was given its first official look at the device a few weeks ago when Steve Jobs descended from his holy digital mountain with the updated phone in his hands. Reports have already circulated about spontaneous rallies of Apple fans, and we’ve seen the video footage of consumers reacting with fits of ecstasy as they hold their new purchase.

The frenzy created every time Apple releases a new product highlights a growing but under-reported phenomenon: the power of consumer brands to supplant traditional religions in peoples’ lives. Many Christians believe the greatest threat to the church today is…