September 20, 2003

Last year Popular Mechanics announced that a team of British scientists, assisted by Israeli archaeologists, had fashioned “the most accurate image” of the face of Jesus. Assuming that Jesus would have looked like a typical Galilean Semite of his time, the scientists gathered skulls from that date found near Jerusalem and proceeded to reconstruct Jesus’ face.

A walk down the aisle of any major bookstore reveals that spirituality sells, and that spirituality is not confined to the “religion” or “Christian inspiration” sections. Diverse though the literature on spirituality is, a body of popular teachings about God—and how we might experience God—is emerging within it. If the civil religion and public theologies of mainline Protestantism no longer capture the imagination of the average American, perhaps this new teaching is taking its place.

Just a few months before his 80th birthday, Jaroslav Pelikan has published yet another major project—editing, in collaboration with Valerie Hotchkiss, a collection of the creeds and confessions of the Christian tradition from its beginnings up through the Lutheran–Roman Catholic 1999 joint declaration on the doctrine of justification.

Dave Hurst is a dentist who shares a practice with his wife, Dana, and comes home at night to their three little girls. He feels he does the lion's share of the household duties: his domestic skills are more finely honed, and the tantrum-prone youngest child doesn't like to be touched by anyone but Daddy.