Latest Articles
Methodists see more no-growth churches: The one number that keeps going up
“There is one number in our denomination that keeps going up,” observed Michael Coyner, a United Methodist bishop in Indiana and president of his church’s national Board of Discipleship....
Canadian priests, nuns rap Vatican's rigidity: Challenging "intransigent stands on sexual morals"
Mincing few words, an umbrella group representing 22,000 Roman Catholic monks, nuns and priests in Canada’s religious orders has challenged the “intransigent” stands of the Vatican on such issues a...
Georgia may OK school Bible classes: Elective courses in public high schools
Georgia’s legislature, with both major parties approving, has overwhelmingly passed a bill to fund elective Bible courses in public high schools....
Imperial Nature: Joy tempered by mourning
Church leaders in many parts of the world, including General Secretary Samuel Kobia of the World Council of Churches, expressed relief and joy at the freeing of three members of Christian Peacemake...
Afghan Christian averts death for apostasy as Italy grants asylum: American Muslims insist death for apostates not mandated
After a week of intense lobbying by Western governments for his release, Abdul Rahman, an Afghan who faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity, arrived in Italy, where he re...
No comparison: A chaplain's view of torture
When war causes us to suppress our deepest religious and moral convictions, we cave in to a “higher religion” called war. Yes, there is beauty in patriotism, in its unselfishness and love of country. But this beauty makes for what Reinhold Niebuhr called the “ethical paradox in patriotism”—a tendency to transmute individual unselfishness into national egoism. When this happens, the critical attitude of the individual is squelched, permitting the nation to use “power without moral constraint.”
Lame excuse: Pastors and parishioners
One night over burgers and some libation, a seminary classmate declared, “Theology and exegesis won’t matter once you’re in the parish....
Fresh evidence: U.S. and the Israel lobby
John Mearsheimer, an expert in international relations at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, academic dean of Harvard University’s John F....
Hooked on war: The psychology of car sales
Sixteen toy Model A Fords greet me each day in my study. In the 1927 model, modest headlights are connected by a straight bar. Its symbolic straight face is noncommittal....
Miracle market: Mark's enigmatic ending
So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid....
Passion play: Life and death on the Root River
“The secret of life is that it is a passion play.”
—Holmes Rolston...
Call me: 1 John 1:1—2:2
Experiencing God as darkness makes determining how to walk in the light less certain than we might suspect or desire.
Being Benedict: The pope's first year
Late in his life, Karl Barth invited a young Catholic theologian to join his theology seminar....
Lenten roadmap
An engineering professor from Germany who was attending my course on the Genesis debates was flabbergasted to learn that in the U.S....