Features
Marketing plan: A mainline church in the Bible Belt
I used to receive postcards from conservative churches
advertising their upcoming sermon series. Why, I asked myself, don't mainline
churches advertise like this? That question led
to an experiment.
Unexpected grief: Elegy for a border collie
On February 23, Libya was convulsed in civil revolt. Oil prices spiked, and stock values plummeted. Meanwhile, in
New Jersey, a dog was euthanized. God
forgive me, but it is this last event that I will remember.
Deep listening: The pastor learns the congregation’s story
Pastoral ethnography is a strategy for listening to church members in a disciplined, attentive way. As a researcher, the pastor strives for a neutral attitude—which promotes honesty and greater understanding.
From shame to fame
Lady Gaga is a Kierkegaard in fishnet stockings. Intentionally or not, she reminds us that Jesus came among us as a misfit.
Limited access: Mobilizing for gun control
Though churches often minister to victims of violence, they do not often speak up about gun control. Yet a grassroots mobilization of churches could be the key to breaking the gun lobby's influence.
Catholic crackdown: Elizabeth Johnson and the bishops
Perhaps the bishops view Elizabeth Johnson's work as dangerous precisely because she does not ridicule or reject tradition--she embraces it. She is loyal and critical at the same time.
Midnight in Paris
Woody Allen fans were in a rough spot for nearly a decade and a half.
But now, with his sexy, sun-drenched
Mediterranean comedy Vicky Cristina Barcelona and the enchanting new Midnight in Paris, Allen seems to have a new lease on life.
Books
The Dead Saint, by Marilyn Brown Oden
The Dead Saint is a big Ludlumesque, Dan Brown-ish terror novel saturated with a pronounced, take-sides morality....
Speak Christian
Stanley Hauerwas's new book offers an exuberant retrospective on a life and career in which conversation, argument, reflection and proclamation have shaped and disciplined a remarkable body of work.
The Environmental Vision of Thomas Merton, by Monica Weis, SSJ
Thomas Merton was a monk, a poet, a contemplative, a peace activist, a nurturer of interreligious dialogue—and much more....
The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology
To be a Christian is to be a theologian, because by definition all Christians, lay or clergy, engage in God-talk. The only question is whether this conversation is well informed....
Departments
Gravesite blessing
A dying parishioner of mine didn't care about the church budget or the
sexual orientation of the choir director. He just wanted help finding a
faith to carry him through a life that'd been full of interruptions.
Learning curve
Male mainline Protestants can celebrate what we learn from our female colleagues: that our
own sense of ordained ministry is unthinkable without them.
Turning out voters
Photo ID requirements not only act as a de facto poll tax; they address a virtually nonexistent problem. Concerns about voter fraud are wildly overblown.
News
UMC suspends minister for performing same-sex union
A United Methodist minister was suspended for 20 days by a church court in Wisconsin for performing a same-sex union in 2009, a breach of denominational rules....
New York State is sixth to legalize gay marriage
"We have lifted the legal barriers that had segregated some loves to shadows," said Stephen H. Phelps, interim senior minister of Manhattan's Riverside Church....
Justices cite ‘standing’ in church-state disputes
After the U.S. Supreme Court ended its 2010–2011 term in late June,
legal scholars specializing in church-state issues are saying a Court
decision issued in the spring is likely to resonate in First Amendment...
Can creedless Unitarians make it another 50 years?
A recent Sunday service at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
ended with an apology. Laurel Mendes explained that religious doctrine
had been duly scrubbed from the hymns in the congregation's Sunday...
Liechtenstein parishes may lose subsidies
Churches in Liechtenstein, one of the world's smallest countries,
could face financial disaster with government plans to withdraw state
subsidies under new legislation, according to a Protestant leader....
Historic consensus on proselytizing
Christian missionaries should renounce all "deception and coercive
means" of winning converts, according to a final document from a
coalition of evangelicals, the World Council of Churches and the...
Public rates politicians’ sexual, financial lapses on different moral scales
Americans are tougher on politicians for their financial misdeeds
than their sexual ones, but men are more willing than women to tolerate
sexual misbehavior in their elected officials....
Evangelical leaders see their influence falling
Are U.S. evangelicals losing their influence on America? A new poll
from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life seems to say just that,
with the vast majority—82 percent—of U.S. evangelical leaders saying...
Obama urged to change faith-based hiring rules
A group of clergy and lawmakers is trying to overturn a nearly
decade-old policy that allows faith-based organizations that receive
federal funds to hire and fire employees on the basis of religion....
Conservative group wants Senator Vitter to resign
The president of the Christian conservative Family Policy Network has
sent Sen. David Vitter (R., La.) a letter calling on him to follow the
lead of former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) and resign rather than...
Lectionary
Sunday, July 31, 2011: Genesis 32:22-31
Even a painful cheap shot cannot shake Jacob's resolve.