Features
Behold the hippo: A zoologist sings the doxology
What might God have to say about the creatures most people don’t think of as lovable?
Truth is proportional: The limits of what we can know
Rousseau and Barth each imagined arriving in heaven with his books. But the response they anticipated could hardly have been more different.
Wisdom and light
Is John 1 a midrash on the creation story and the song of creative Wisdom? If so, its writer has infused it with profoundest joy.
Talking less, seeing more: An interview with Sara Maitland
“Silence gives me freedom in both real time and psychic time. When I talk less, I see more. And silence gives me time to pray.”
In pursuit of silence: My annual sojourn into the Sinai Desert
All deserts are silent, harsh and beautiful. Sinai adds its history of God’s dealings with humanity. It’s a holy place where the veil is lifted.
A Separation
A Separation
is a highly ambitious piece of work. It successfully tackles a range of
topics and themes, from class, religion and gender to pride, guilt and
justice. It is a tale that appears uniquely Iranian but quickly
transcends physical and spiritual borders to portray the difficulty of
doing the right thing under difficult, even life-threatening
circumstances.
Crunching the numbers
The Census Bureau avoids collecting data about religion. So most of what we know is based on what people reveal to independent researchers.
Missing winter: Notes from the farm
Driving through a mini-snowstorm, I thought I might see a snowbow. But it never materialized--and once again, none of the snow stuck.
Books
Gathering Those Driven Away, by Wendy Farley
Wendy Farley formulates a theology of Wisdom incarnate--unleashed by divine desire, found in ordinary life and born in a manger.
God of wholeness
Fred Gaiser offers a sober, accessible review of the biblical materials pertinent to our thinking about healing.
Devil's Ink, by Jeffrey C. Pugh, and The Devil Wears Nada, by Tripp York
Jeffrey C. Pugh and Tripp York are Facebook friends. Both teach religion at southern institutions of higher learning. Last year, each wrote a good-natured book about Satan.
Departments
Betrayal of the faithful
For some Christians, the menace of apostasy is anything but distant or theoretical.
The St. Peter's Memorial Cross
Before it was installed, the cross outside St. Peter's Catholic Church in Manhattan traveled 4,500 miles across the U.S. on the bed of sculptor Jon Krawczyk's pickup truck....
Anxious in Palestine
Palestinian parents don’t fret about drugs or drunk drivers. They worry that the Israeli soldiers will use their M-16s.
Life after resurrection
Easter Sunday is glorious. But the most important Sundays come afterward, when we are left—as were
Jesus' disciples—with the sense that nothing can ever be the same.
Preemptive self-defense
Stand-your-ground laws reflect our culture's belief that violence is not a last resort--it’s a way to proactively promote security.
News
Forced exits erode clergy morale
They are called "clergy killers"—congregations in which a small group of members are so disruptive that no pastor is able to maintain spiritual leadership for long....
Turkey put on 'worst' list for religious freedom
Turkey, a key U.S. and NATO ally, stands as a new and controversial
addition to an annual list of the worst offenders of religious freedom
by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom....
Son says sibling rivalry fueled cathedral troubles
As the Crystal Cathedral tries to find its footing without any
members of founder Robert H. Schuller's family at the helm, the only son
and onetime successor says "sibling rivalry" played a key role in the...
New Obama proposal gives religious groups more say in birth control mandate
The Obama administration is offering to expand the number of
faith-based groups that can be exempt from the controversial
contraception mandate and is proposing that third-party companies...
As Rowan Williams retires, guesses on successor rise
When Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams announced suddenly in
mid-March that he will step down at the end of 2012, a short list of
prospective successors swiftly began to circulate. ...
Why is it so hard to do religion in prime time?
Why is it so hard to do religion in prime time?...
Blacks say atheists were unseen civil rights heroes
Think of the civil rights movement and chances are the image that
comes to mind is of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. leading the 1963
March on Washington....
Lectionary
Sunday, April 29, 2012 (1 John 3:16–24)
"How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?" Even some Christians rule 1 John's question out of order.
Sunday, April 22, 2012 (Luke 24:36b–48)
The appearance of a ghost can be explained in all sorts of ways. But when Jesus appears—bearing scars and hungry for a nice piece of tilapia—then we have to do more than merely rearrange some intellectual furniture.