Christine Wicker

Christine Wicker

Christine Wicker is the author of five nonfiction books and a former columnist and religion reporter for The Dallas Morning News. She was a founding writer for The Dallas Morning News' award-winning religion section, which changed American religion coverage by inspiring newspapers all over the country to increase their coverage of religion. Among her many journalism awards is the national Wilbur Award from the Association of Religion Communicators for a series on international peace efforts by non-governmental organizations. Her books include an expose of evangelical power claims, a spiritual memoir, and a New York Times bestseller about a 130-year-old New York community of spiritualists. She has written extensively for Parade magazine, Huffington Post, and AOL's Politics Daily. She is currently ghost writing a book called No Greatness without Goodness about a father whose autistic son inspired him to revolutionize American management ideas and open thousands of new jobs to people with disabilities. Tyndale Press will publish the book next year.

Posts by Christine Wicker

July 30, 2014

Prayer as a Portable Power Source

According to Christian belief, Pentecost is a remembrance of the disciples of Jesus being comforted after his death by a visitation from the Holy Ghost. Professor Birgit Meyer captured my imagination when she characterized the infilling of the Holy Ghost that occurred at that time as “a portable power source.”

May 1, 2014

Taking It to the Streets

People often talk and write about praying in their houses or in the house of God, or at hospitals beds or over meals. But one of the places people pray most and talk about the least is the car.

 

January 27, 2014

Three Theories For Why "Nones" Pray

The latest addition to Pray for Me, our Psychology Today blog on prayer, references NDSP grantee Elizabeth Drescher’s research on why people who claim no religious affiliation pray. From her research, Drescher gives us the nones’ reason for continuing to pray; I also give three guesses for why prayer might persist even when religious beliefs fall away.

September 13, 2013

Hip Hip Hooray for Kuhn

For me the most telling point in the exchange about interdisciplinary dialogue is Charles Hirschkind’s reference to Thomas Kuhn, who by forever smashing our innocent faith in the impartiality of scientific findings, restored other kinds of inquiry to a somewhat more equal footing. Journalistically speaking (which is the only platform I have): Hip hip hooray for Kuhn, he’s a jolly good fellow! He gave us back a thousand colors.

July 17, 2013

After the Zimmerman Verdict, What Are They Praying?

In the wake of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the killing of Trayvon Martin, there has been anger, protests, marches — and everywhere, an outpouring of prayers.

Are those prayers being wielded as an alternative, non-violent weapon? Are they meant to pacify? Just what is it, I wondered, that those responding prayerfully are asking of God?

June 5, 2013

When Jesus Saves

The Sunday after tornadoes ravaged Texas, killing six, The Dallas Morning News front page, five-column, lead headline read “Faith seeing them through.” Newspapers don’t traditionally banner such affirmations of religion; seeing this newspaper do so caused a tumble of contradictory feelings in me.

March 14, 2013

How do You Know God's Talking to You?

For much of my career as a reporter, we journalists simply set our pencils aside whenever a source started talking about religion. Nobody ever said so, but we knew that this kind of talk didn’t belong in the mainstream media. We would cover religion, sure, but only as an event. If the Pope came to town, we’d make a big, reverential fuss. If a tent revival came to town, we’d treat it like a freak show. But if a mother whose child had died told us that Jesus came to comfort her, we did her the favor of not letting the rest of the world know that she was so unhinged as to be talking like that.

February 28, 2013

Intercessory Prayer as Powerful, or Pointless?

Substituting “good thoughts” for intercessory prayer has become a common practice among friends looking for a way to comfort the sick and bereaved. I recently published a short meditation on the how and why of this new practice, and some thoughts on whether it measures up to the more old-fashioned ways of consolation […]