Features
Mother in the House: Nancy Pelosi's first career
After the November election, stories began circulating about Nancy Pelosi’s “mother of five” voice, the voice she uses to great effect with staff members and colleagues. Forged during the years she spent at home with her five children, Pelosi’s authoritative voice helped make this Californian Speaker of the House and the first woman to be within two rungs of the presidency. I call that progress.
The submergent church: "The unseen leaven in society"
A man in his mid-30s sits in a recliner in a dark room. Bursts of light from an episode of Dancing with the Stars flash on the walls and furniture. He grasps a cold beer, and a bag of potato chips is in his lap. This man is a pastor, and he is—at this very moment—leading his flock.
Minority report: Christians in Jordan
On a recent trip to Jordan, no one directing my tour group objected to my meeting with Christian evangelicals. But the evangelicals were nervous.
Rumors of a birth
Readers of P. D. James’s novel Children of Men won’t be prepared for the emotional breadth of the film version by Alfonso Cuarón. Like most dystopian stories, the book is relentlessly grim, icy and pedantic. Set 20 years in the future in a fascist England that barricades its borders and treats refugees like prisoners of war, the film posits a world in which, for obscure reasons, no children have been born in nearly two decades. The youngest member of the human race—still known as Baby Diego—has just been killed in a bar fight at the age of 18, prompting mass outbreaks of grief.
Books
Living the Sabbath
In a high school sociology course called “Man in Society”—the very title dates me—one assignment was to dream up h...
BookMarks
Charles Darwin’s great-great-grandson and a successful Hollywood sc...
Alcohol, Addiction and Christian Ethics
As both a clinical psychiatrist and an Anglican priest-theologian at England’s Durham University, Christopher Cook has doubly impressive c...
Ultimate victory
Jon Levenson has established himself as the foremost theological interpreter of the Hebrew Bib...
American mystic
Let’s cut to the chase here....
The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer
Nothing illustrates the evolution of Anglicanism more than the changing role of the Book of Common Prayer....
The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East
Palestinians, Israelis and others active in peace and human rights work sigh when political dilettantes come to t...
Departments
Louder than words: Missiological authenticity
Jason Byassee’s article on Christians in Jordan reminded me of some conversations I had early in my ministry with a fellow pastor in Indiana who had served many years as a mission...
Hangman's knot: No space for repentance and reconciliation
Killing people is a grisly business, even in the case of capital punishment. In Florida last year executioners found Angel Nieves Diaz still moving 24 minutes after the first administration of lethal drugs....
Bible companion: A book with presence
"The man who delivers my groceries wants a Bible,” my mother said, “but he doesn’t know which one. What shall I tell him?” I should have had a ready answer for her, but I did not. It was a big question, after all....
A funny thing: Up today and down tomorrow
One night years ago, when there were such things as open tickets on airlines and one did not have to establish identity to get through security, my wife and I left $900 worth of tickets on the back seat of a cab from O’Hare Airport to our home....
News
Century Marks
Talking about Jesus: Jonathan Miller, Democratic state treasurer in Kentucky, is considering a run for governor. He has developed a stump speech that works well in a conservative, religious state like Kentucky—it talks about Jesus. Nothing startling there, except that Miller is Jewish. Miller says that when he wants to talk to poor people about how he would help them he keeps getting asked, “What’s your position on gay marriage?” (Forward, December 15)
Churches oppose troop surge in Iraq: Encourage "a robust diplomatic effort"
Mainline church leaders are expressing opposition to President Bush’s plan to escalate U.S. troop presence in Iraq....
Foundations, other donors make NCC healthy if not wealthy: Social justice and environmental work supported
Bob Edgar said he was hired seven years ago as the top executive of the financially bleeding National Council of Churches to do three things: Raise money, raise money and raise money. ...
Carter, Clinton urge new Baptist covenant network: Gathering planned for early 2008
Leaders from 40 Baptist organizations are joining forces with former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to hold a gathering next January that will emphasize their common goals, especially to counter the public image of Baptists as predominan...
Advisers cut Carter Center ties over book: Protest statements on the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate
Fourteen members of a 200-member advisory group to the Atlanta-based Carter Center have resigned in protest over former president Jimmy Carter’s recent book and statements on the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate....
Plan for Bush library on SMU campus stirs protest: Faculty and Methodist clergy oppose project
Southern Methodist University, which holds to its denomination’s standards for leadership and public service, has become embroiled in a controversy over linking itself permanently to the husband of one of its most famous alumni, Laura Bush....
Polish church crisis echoes Vatican slowness on U.S. abuse scandals: Allegations of collaboration lead to resignation
The abrupt resignation of a top Polish prelate, amid allegations that he collaborated with Poland’s Soviet-era secret police, has once again shone a spotlight on the reluctance among Roman Catholic officials to confront scandal within their ranks....
Church of Christ congregation OKs musical instruments: Want to "reach more people who need Christ"
The nation’s largest a cappella congregation within the Churches of Christ has decided to add a worship assembly on Saturday evenings that will make use of musical instruments....
Briefly noted
A Vatican official has upheld the wholesale excommunication of hundreds of lay Catholics affiliated with dissident and reform groups by a Nebraska bishop 11 years ago....
People
The National Association of Evangelicals has chosen a former top official of the Salvation Army to serve as its new executive director. W....
Lectionary
Altitude adjustment: Luke 9:28-36 (37-43)
In the hospital emergency room, someone accidentally bumps into an aide carrying a bedpan, and urine sloshes onto the floor. After several hours of waiting, my mother is finally admitted. I pay for TV, but she does not have the strength to push the buttons on the remote. She can’t find the red button to call the nurse either. She tells me that last night she was taken down to a dungeon where she lay awake in terror. Now she wonders why someone left a black Scottish terrier in the corner of her room.
Aliens welcome: Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Luke 4:1-13
As I write this, the kitchen table is shaking. If our table is shaking, I worry that the church’s beautiful stained-glass windows, desperately in need of repair, are also shaking. The parsonage is attached to the church and shares the same foundation. Seven feet away all hell is breaking loose. Several blocks of businesses that have served this neighborhood are being knocked down by giant backhoes and inflated real estate prices to make way for towering apartments.