Twenty-five-year-old noblewoman Anne Askew (1521–1546) was accused of heresy, arrested, interrogated at least twice, tortured on the rack, and burned alive at the stake.

I was raised in a church and family that encouraged women to be all that they were meant to be.

Some time ago I visited a church in which the sermon, delivered by a guest preacher, concluded with the sentence “If you do this you’ll be happy, and your neighbour will be happy.”

In my first year of graduate studies at Yale University, I was asked to be a teaching assistant in a course that allowed for “the yeah, yeah experience” to arise.

Over the past few weeks I have had several long conversations with pastors who seem dangerously close to burn-out. They’re worried because some 25 to 30 percent of their congregations haven’t returned to church following the easing of pandemic restrictions.

In my graduate studies, my professors had me read great books written by great men who had made a difference in the church and academy. They never talked about the great books that women had written and the great things that women had done. Women’s voices had long been silenced.

The first time I encountered the term eating disorder I was about twelve and read a letter addressed to Dear Abby, a syndicated advice column published in many North American newspapers.

Anne Hutchinson (ca. 1591-1643) was a courageous woman who fought for many of the freedoms we now take for granted.

Eight years ago, our family moved into the heart of Toronto. One of the surprises that came with this move was being freed from my car; something I was completely dependent on while pastoring in suburbia. Now I was taking public transit every day as I travelled into Wycliffe College.

Albert Mohler is blowing up the Internet.

The pandemic has brought forth many questions about how we conduct our lives. We have been forced to re-examine our patterns of living, attitudes, and behaviour and begun to think anew about the very nature of work and its concomitant, recreation, or leisure.

I was first introduced to renowned abolitionist, women’s rights activist, and feminist biblical commentator Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) at a birthday party held in her honor at Yale Divinity School.

Early African American women dared to preach and call for personal and societal change. These heroes of faith inspire us and need to be remembered. We stand on their shoulders as we continue to battle over questions of gender, race, and biblical interpretation.

The biblical prophet Habakkuk lived during the troubled last decades of Israel’s southern kingdom. “The Chaldeans [also called Babylonians] that fierce and impetuous nation” threatened to destroy God’s people.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Who was St. Patrick, and what example does his life and mission have for us today? First, a few pertinent facts. We know that Patrick was born in the late fourth century in Roman Britain, the son of a deacon, and grandson of a priest.

Esther was one of many gracious life-long members of our church. A real salt-of-the-earth type, who with her husband had raised three kids to be successful, fully-launched adults. She was now thoroughly enjoying a bunch of grandkids, most of whom were already teenagers.

Hidden away in the November 1921 edition of Nazarene Messenger, the official paper of the early Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles, is an article titled “Qualifications of an Interpreter” written by Olive May Winchester (1879-1947).

You may be familiar with Rev. John Newton (1725-1807) as the author of the famous hymn, Amazing Grace. What you may not know is that he came to have an important ministry as a spiritual director, primarily through letter writing.

It began in my childhood home in northwest India. My father was a Canadian Anglican priest who, after serving as a padre during the horrors of the Second World War, went to minister to a leper colony and small Anglican parish in the foothills of the Himalayas.