Latest Articles

Knit together: Jacqueline Novogratz tells the story of a favorite sweater that she wore for years. When she was 12 she finally donated the sweater to Goodwill. Then, 12 years later, she was jogging in Rwanda and saw a small boy wearing a sweater. She ran up to him and took a look at the collar: her name was on it! For Novogratz, the experience confirmed the interconnectedness of the human family (Atlantic Monthly, October).

A recent article in the New Yorker about the race for governor in Ohio declared that the November election would “test the power of the Christian right.” It was not the first article to examine the Republican candidate, Ken Blackwell, and his ties to the religious right. As Ohio’s secretary of state, Blackwell led the 2004 campaign against gay marriage in Ohio, helping put “Issue One,” as the gay marriage amendment was called, on the same ballot as presidential contenders George W. Bush and John Kerry. Voter turnout surged, and Ohio, that ever-wavering swing state, swung for Bush. (Some say Blackwell’s control of the election apparatus also played a part.)But an even more interesting religion story unfolding on Ohio’s campaign trail this fall involves Blackwell’s opponent, Ted Strickland, a United Methodist minister.

Though fans and nonfans of internationally known wildlife enthusiast Steve Irwin had been predicting his demise for quite some time (how long can one tempt the leviathan without a bit of bad luck?)...

After varied efforts by Democratic leaders to convince mainstream churchgoers that they share common moral values, a Baptist ethicist has suggested that the Democrats focus instead on core biblical...

An ambitious Baylor University survey on religious identity and beliefs has found, contrary to some expectations, a smaller percentage of people with “no religion” and fewer people who prefer to be...

Under pressure for days to apologize for his remarks about Islam, Pope Benedict XVI said in a public appearance September 17 that he was “deeply sorry” that his use of a 14th-century quotation crit...

A large, liberal Episcopal church in southern California is close to deciding that it will resist an inquiry by the Internal Revenue Service regarding political activity, possibly forcing a court t...

The United States commemorated the fifth anniversary of the September 2001 terrorist attacks with vigils, worship services and commemorations, as some religious and political leaders said the count...

A three-day summit of Episcopal bishops was not able to resolve their church’s intense disputes over its new top prelate and the role of gays and lesbians in the church....

The Taizé community in eastern France has denied claims reported in the French newspaper Le Monde that its Swiss-born Protestant founder, Brother Roger Schutz, who died last year, had made a...

The former director of the Vatican Observatory has rejected speculation that he was replaced because of his vocal opposition to “intelligent design,” adding that Pope Benedict XVI “enthusiastically...

Progressive Christian activists finished their four-and-a-half-month trek across the country September 3 at a church in Washington, D.C....

Minnesota lawmaker Keith Ellison won the Democratic primary for his Minneapolis-area congressional district September 12, paving the way for him to become the first Muslim in Congress....

In one of those neglected corners of scripture that must scare those brave enough to think about it, Jesus promises an unpleasant future for those who would not visit him in prison: “Just as you di...

I’m teaching “The Bible and Ethics” this semester with my New Testament colleague Mark Chancey....

During this year’s Montreal World Film Festival, I spoke with Suayip Adlig, a producer of the Iraqi Kurdish film Narcissus Blossom....

While doing research for a talk on religion and violence, I kept running into accounts of people who selectively quote the Qur’an to show how it commits Muslims to killing “us” infidels....

The taxi drove past a mural of the American flag. There were skulls where the stars should have been and the words Death to America! scrawled across the stripes....

“The greatest joy of the pastoral ministry is service to a God who is as demanding and disruptive, as unbalanced and relentlessly loving as the Trinity.”

Marriage does not exist only for companionship or procreation or complementarity. It has a cruciform shape, like other ascetical practices, and is a transformative experience for the two individuals. In marriage, God intends not only to alleviate human loneliness but to effect human salvation.