"Pastors are spiritual. Businessmen aren’t. Prayer is spiritual. Work isn’t. The physical world is bad. The unseen heavenly realm is good." This sacred-secular dichotomy has plagued the church from the beginning.

If Jesus gives us freedom of choice, freedom to choose or reject him, then certainly we must promote and protect freedom of religion for others.

I am writing from Yale University in New Haven, CT where I am preparing for the upcoming Building Hope conference (June 13-22, 2011). I am consulting with the Reconciliation Program directed by Joseph Cumming. The Reconciliation Program is part of Yale’s Center for Faith & Culture, directed by Miroslav Volf. 

A close friend of mine was sharing his heart with me. “Rick, I was talking about the Seven Resolutions Against Prejudice, Hatred & Discrimination with a well-known pastor. The pastor dismissed the document without even reading it, saying, ‘I don’t do interfaith stuff!’ How do I respond to this?”

In his short series on the subject of jihad, Dr. David Johnston now explains the concepts of the “greater” and “lesser jihad”, as found in the Quran. You may be surprised at the conclusion!

I ended the first half of this blog arguing that Sayyid Qutb’s definition of jihad, as total and permanent war until Islam reigns supreme in the world, was a throwback to the consensus of Muslim jurists and theologians in the classical period and a vigorous push back against the modern Islamic consensus that military jihad can only be justified in the case of foreign invasion. Let me unpack that here.

Thanks to Osama bin Laden and others like him, “jihad” has become a byword for terrorism and oppression and the source of much societal Islamophobia in recent days. Could the concept of jihad ever be a peaceful one? Guest blogger Dr. David Johnston opens up the issue, discusses the "sword verses" found in the Quran, and explains the actual history behind the idea of jihad.

A young pastor texted me when he heard that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. "Rick, is it wrong to be happy that someone who has been behind so much pain and suffering around the world is no longer able to do so?"

This last week we hosted an urban youth group from San Diego for a week of service. For the first teaching time, I taught them about the parable of the Good Samaritan. I asked the group to imagine how Jesus would have retold the story if he had walked the streets of San Diego. The first guy started in, without hesitation, and told the story of the Good Somali who helped the wounded Mexican.