Features
The room in the firehouse
I went to a meeting with a friend yesterday. Many of the speakers were wry and funny, but their stories were awful.
Scene at the table: A disruption on Maundy Thursday
As I came to the first student and his family, kneeling with outstretched hands, suddenly someone took out a phone and snapped a picture.
Marching with prophets: Selma and the rise of an advocacy style
The third Selma-to-Montgomery march was a civil rights watershed. It also focused the lives of many who gave it its spiritual hue.
Appetite: Essays by readers
In response to our request for essays on appetite, we received many compelling reflections. Here is a selection.
Divine contractions: Gods labor, our deliverance
Isaiah doesn't politely, abstractly compare God to a mother giving birth. The text suggests that God squats and pants and bellows like a moose.
Credible fears: Central American women seek asylum
Last year, the U.S. took thousands of "family units" into custody at the southern border. Nearly every woman cites violence as the reason she fled.
Books
Feasting on the Word, by David L. Bartlett and Carol Bartlett
The Bartletts view the children’s sermon as an integral part of worship, not just an add-on to entertain the children briefly....
Latino Pentecostals in America, by Gastón Espinosa
Histories of U.S. Pentecostalism have long focused on two narratives: black and white. Gastón Espinosa looks instead at Latino Pentecostals.
The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant, by Michael J. Gorman
For there to be a heresy about the cross, there would have to be an orthodoxy about it. Michael Gorman argues that contentions over how Jesus saves lead to an inadequate grasp of what the Passion means and does.
Short Stories by Jesus, by Amy-Jill Levine
Reading Amy-Jill Levine's Short Stories by Jesus, I kept wishing she had published it earlier. It would have saved me some mistakes in the pulpit.
40 Days with the Holy Spirit, by Jack Levison
Levison, who teaches Old Testament at Perkins School of Theology, has made a career of studying Spirit in scripture....
Found in translation
George Steiner said that "the translator invades, extracts, and brings home." In this remarkable volume, Everett Fox does all of this.
Departments
Bigger on the inside
I've never knowingly visited purgatory or fairy land, but I have set foot in a few small places that, once entered, prove to be larger.
The spirit of Dreamtime
Indigenous Australians have long practiced a profound, land-centered spirituality. Only recently have Western Christians begun to acknowledge this.
Mustard seeds
To be a follower of the one who promised that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed is to expect a blessed in-breaking of peace.
Martyrs
ISIS’s primary targets remain Muslims it views as apostate. But a new generation of Christian martyrs is arising as well.
News
Francis Kateh, United Methodist physician, among volunteers for Ebola vaccine
Francis Kateh, a United Methodist physician, was among 12 volunteers who took an Ebola vaccine as the first large-scale trials of two experimental vaccines against the deadly virus began in Liberia....
Christians in Libya face rising attacks
With the growing strength and number of extremist Islamic groups, Libya has become a dangerous place for Christians, who are the targets of kidnapping and murder at the hands of extremists who now control most of the country....
Turkish minorities protest required religion classes, expanded ‘Imam’ schools
Turkey’s largest religious minority—the Alevi community—is joining forces with atheists to protest mandatory religious education for students as young as five....
Covenant Church ends ties with congregation in Portland over LGBT stance
An up-and-coming pastor has been told his denomination will no longer support his church plant in Portland, Oregon, because of his support for gay and lesbian people....
Janani Jakaliya Luwum, Ugandan archbishop killed by Idi Amin, honored with public holiday
anani Jakaliya Luwum, an Anglican archbishop recognized as a martyr, was honored by a public holiday celebrating his life and ministry in Uganda on February 16....
Pope Francis adds cardinals, continues efforts at reform
Pope Francis added 20 new members to the College of Cardinals in mid-February, urging them not to see themselves as a priestly elite but to be models of love and humility....
Nigeria delays elections as it fights Boko Haram
(The Christian Science Monitor) The decision by Nigeria’s electoral commission to postpone the general election until March 28 because of security concerns related to the Boko Haram in...
El Salvador Catholic Church supports a gang truce rejected by government
(The Christian Science Monitor) El Salvador's Catholic Church has been openly engaging in talks with gang members, raising hopes that a truce reached by gang leaders earlier this year ...
Jack Moline to head the Interfaith Alliance
Jack Moline, a rabbi who briefly led the nation’s top Jewish Democratic group, is the new head of the Interfaith Alliance, an advocacy group for the separation of church and state and for progressive causes....
Lectionary
April 3, 2015, Good Friday: Isaiah 52:13-53:12; John 18:1-19:42
Aristotle writes that we would never go to the theater to see terrible things happen to a good man through no fault of his. Yet here we gather, aching for a good man’s sorrows and turning to him to make sense of our own.
April 2, 2015, Maundy Thursday: John 13:1-17, 31b-35
John 13 begins with imminent betrayal, suffering, and death. Understandably, we envision the scene with somber images. But I wonder if we overlook Jesus’ joy.
March 29, 2015, Palm Sunday: John 12:12-16
Palm Sunday is a story of disappointed expectations, of what happens when someone you admire refuses to be who you think they should be.
March 22, 2015, Fifth Sunday in Lent: John 12:20-33
The Jesus that John shows us in this week’s Gospel text is not a religious robot, unemotionally prepared to end it all for the cause. He sees the risks, feels them.