Latest Articles
In war and in peace: Implications of just war theory
The just war tradition is meant to be more than a tidy checklist of criteria for evaluating a conflict. The tradition developed not as a theory to be bandied about, but as a rigorous ecclesial practice that arose out of the church’s day-to-day life and shapes that life. The tradition is a form of Christian discipleship, an expression of the character of Christian communities concerned daily with justice and with loving their near and distant neighbors.
Fatigue factor: Varieties of Christian motherhood
Our plane landed at Gatwick airport on July 7, the day the bombs went off, and the four of us made our way through the mass of bedraggled travelers and machine gun-toting police to the airport bus....
In over my head: Learning from Lance Armstrong
Here is Lance Armstrong, reflecting on the day he learned he had testicular cancer: “Athletes don’t tend to think of themselves as human....
Jesus math: Matthew 18:21-35
Four hundred ninety times? Do we really have to do this?
Jesus isn’t cool: Challenging youth ministry
Cramming more than 50 high school students into a small room for a Bible study is challenging, but getting them to talk about sex is not. When the hand of one 15-year-old boy shot up in the back of the room, I braced myself. “Is masturbation a sin?—I really gotta know.” I was proud of him—using a word like sin is hard for a teenager.
What teens believe
Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton have conducted the most comprehensive and reliable research e...
Family fallout
For old-school cinephiles who bemoan the demise of the classical European art film, rife with misplaced passion and rampant guilt, a familiar name has come to the rescue....
Søren Kierkegaard
Joakim Garff’s justly acclaimed biography of Kierkegaard, published in English in the year marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of Hans Chris...
Designer Children
Philosophers Mary Midgley and Judith Hughes have observed: “Individualism, like salt, is a very g...
Hooked on veggies: The triumph of Junior Asparagus
Mage Knights, those miniature warriors with names like Gibbering Ghoul, Bone Grinder, Soul Stealer and Weresabertooth, were all the rage last year in elementary school....
Suspending disbelief: Marian visions
Ghost Ranch, a Presbyterian haven in New Mexico, in 1968 welcomed its first Catholic speaker, Father Anthony Wilhelm, with whom I was to hold a public conversation....
Schooled in religion: Bible verses in the classroom
The day always began at the Fairview Elementary School with the teacher reading ten verses from the Bible, alternating one from the Old with one from the New Testament....
No small talk: A plea for civil discourse
After last November’s election, a frustrated member of a Mennonite congregation near South Bend, Indiana, wrote an article for his congregation’s newsletter....
Century Marks
“America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior,” argues Bill McKibben (Harper’s Magazine, August). Americans have hijacked the teachings of Jesus that call for "a radical, voluntary, and effective reordering of power relationships, based on the principle of love.” The dominant American theologies of end-times obsession and consumer-oriented religiosity “undercut Jesus, . . . deaden his call, and . . . silence him.”
Disciples latest to critique Israeli tactics: A resolution against the security barrier
Despite lobbying pleas from a noted Jewish organization, delegates to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) General Assembly have passed a resolution calling on Israel to stop construction of ...
Vatican suggests Israel breaks law in some responses to terrorism: Holy See will not oppose only Palestinian acts
The Vatican, in a sharp retort to Israeli criticism of Pope Benedict XVI, said it could not protest every act of Palestinian terrorism because Israel’s responses are “not always compatible with the...
Frist splits with Bush on stem-cell research: Majority leader supports expanded federal funding
The Senate’s majority leader, citing his expertise as a physician, has announced that he would support an expansion of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research....