Take My Hand: The Gospel and the Blues
By Steve Beard The first of several pivotal scenes in the film Selma occurs when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. makes a late night phone call to gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. The undeniable weight of what lay ahead for King and the civil rights movement was...
U2 observes the passing of its “North Star”: Pastor Jack Heaslip, RIP
By Steve Beard On Wednesday, February 25, members of the band U2 gathered at St. Mary’s Church outside of Dublin in order to observe the passing of the Rev. Jack Heaslip, the band’s long time friend and “traveling pastor.” The 71-year-old Anglican priest passed away...
The Blood of the Martyrs
By Steve Beard “They were stoned, they were sawn in two; they were put to death with the sword. They [were] … destitute, afflicted, ill-treated – the world was not worthy of them.” Hebrews 11:37 Added to the ever increasing list of demonic atrocities conducted by ISIS...
LL Cool J on tithing and career longevity
By Steve Beard “Every dime I get, no matter what it is, I give 10 percent to the church,” rapper and actor LL Cool J recently said. The interviewer from Hot 97, a hip hop radio station in New York City, said that she had first heard LL Cool J (born James Todd Smith)...
The way of faith for Alice Cooper
By Steve Beard Back in 2002, MTV announced that the biggest hit in its history was a program called “The Osbournes.” The half-hour show — complete with constant bleeping from excessive foul language — was a curiously fascinating docu-comedy starring the members of...
Wrestling disquietly with the Bible
By Steve Beard “My new Bible study is really testing me. I have never studied the Bible or read my Bible and I really have no idea how to do it,” confessed my friend Tiffany on Facebook. “The language is still confusing and I feel like I’m not really getting the...
East of Eden
By Steve Beard Every morning I see a poster hanging in my home for a Triple Crown surf contest in Hawaii. During the last 25 years, I have been to several of the islands, but the small town of Haleiwa on the North Shore of Oahu has been my vision of paradise. We all...
Eternity on the Sidewalks
By Steve Beard When we are born we bear the seeds of blight; Around us life & death are torn apart; Yet a great ring of pure and endless light; Dazzles the darkness in my heart. Sometimes poets drive me nuts. Despite my best efforts, poetry is not my first...
Fatherly Advice
My son John Paul just turned 18 years old. I fired off my first letter to him when he was four days old. “All of this is to simply say that you were wanted and we are so glad that you have arrived,” I concluded back in 1996. When he turned 13, family friends wrote him...
NPR’s Over the Rhine interview
Tremendous interview from NPR's David Greene with Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist -- the husband and wife duo behind Over the Rhine. This conversation took place last year shortly after the band released Meet Me at the Edge of the World. This is one of my...