Features
Translating Easter: Spanish is not an elective
In the essay “Jesus Shaves,” from Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris describes a day in a French class that he enrolled in shortly after moving to Paris. In the second month of class, students were learning about the holidays. The textbook listed a series of holidays with accompanying pictures, and the students were told to match the picture with the holiday. A student from Morocco piped up: “Excuse me, but what’s an Easter?”
Beyond criticism: Learning to read the Bible again
A cartoon in the New Yorker shows a man making inquiry at the information counter of a large bookstore. The clerk, tapping on his keyboard and peering intently into the computer screen, replies, “The Bible? . . . That would be under self-help.”
Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? First in a series
In late 2003 President Bush said, in response to a reporter's question, that he believed Muslims and Christians "worship the same God." The remark sparked criticism from some Christians, who thought Bush was being politically correct but theologically inaccurate. For example, Ted Haggard, head of the National Association of Evangelicals, said, "The Christian God encourages freedom, love, forgiveness, prosperity and health. The Muslim god appears to value the opposite."
Common ground
The genteel French film Monsieur Ibrahim, directed by François Dupeyron, is based on the book Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran, by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, who also coscripted the movie. It is a tender story about a Turkish Muslim and a French Jew. The setting is 1960s Paris, in the gritty but colorful Rue Bleue district, once infamous for its assortment of streetwalkers.
En-raptured
"I heard that when the tribulation comes, China will be one of the few countries with a big enough army to take over the United States.” My parishioner looked at me earnestly, awaiting confirmation of her theological and political observation.
Books
Movement on the right
