Features
Feeding and being fed: A feast for those at the edges
Each Tuesday in San Rafael, we experience what it looks like to stop fighting over scraps and instead offer one another something substantial.
Unnoticed ministries: Why churches need to tell their stories
I associate with a lot of liberals who are not people of faith. Few of them have any idea what churches are doing to serve their communities.
Hidden in Timbuktu: An Islamic legacy protected from jihadists
Before the jihadists fled Timbuktu in February, they burned the city's ancient manuscripts. Except all the ones the residents hid.
Unrest in Istanbul: Turkey’s season of struggle
Turkey may be a model for the rest of the Middle East, but the country faces deep problems. And religion is not at these problems' core.
The good kind of liberalism: Reviving a theological tradition
Liberalism's collapse was so dramatic that most theologians distanced themselves from the tradition, as if to avoid infection. But now the dust has settled.
Books
Earth-Honoring Faith, by Larry L. Rasmussen
We live in a strange new world. Climate is rapidly changing, ecosystems are being destroyed, and species are disappearing at alarming rates....
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson, and Maine, by J. Courtney Sullivan
Both Helen Simonson and Courtney Sullivan write tales of generational misunderstanding in which the elder's voice has the last, not very pretty word.
Travels with Dan Brown
I find Dan Brown's use of the word fact charming. Fact: I'm powerless to say precisely what he means by it.
Atchison Blue, by Judith Valente
The changed color of glass is an apt metaphor for Judith Valente's transformation by the light of the Gospels and the lives of Benedictine sisters.
Departments
Something for the coffin
I asked Michael's mother what it was like to say goodbye. "Oh, it wasn't much fun," she said. Then she told me what she put in the coffin.
The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–1669)
Rembrandt captures the pathos of the initial encounter between an aged, loving father and his wayward son. The painter’s attention to detail creates the mood and emotional tone of the composition....
Islam and democracy
The prospects for genuine democracy in Egypt are more remote than ever. But there are other models of Islamic politics in the region.
Bully at the news desk
The Newsroom is a great show that presents a noble sentiment. But it occasionally rings false.
Converted in 1963
I wanted to join a group of pastors going to the March on Washington. But I had young children—and no money for bus fare and meals—so I didn’t. I've rued it ever since.
News
Evangelical body supports politicking in the pulpit
Bucking popular opinion and a decades-old IRS policy, a group of conservative evangelicals is urging that pastors be allowed to endorse political candidates in church without risking their congregations’ tax-exempt status....
Anti-Shari‘a amendment struck down by court
A federal judge has struck down Oklahoma’s constitutional amendment that would have prohibited judges in the state from considering Shari‘a law....
Church of England pressed for stance on fracking
First it was payday lending; now fracking....
Political Islam on defensive across the Middle East
The backlash against Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt comes as secular forces across the Middle East are rising up in opposition to political Islam. Divisions reach from top leaders to the street....
Lutherans elect female presiding bishop
What started as just another church assembly turned into a historic one for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, as members elected Elizabeth Eaton the denomination’s first female presiding bishop....