Latest Articles
Rare alignment: The annunciation and Good Friday falling on the same day
One of my desk drawers is filled with old calendars, which I’ve been saving as a prop for a faulty memory. I suspect it’s a fruitless exercise....
Dazzling truth: The terrific story of Easter
"Easter is a terrific story,” says Tony Hendra, an actor, satirist and author of the wonderful book Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Life....
Kids these days
path from innocence to experience is inevitably complicated: we are tempted to think that the world has become treacherous, not that...
Spirit and Flesh
If you want to understand how Christian conservatives think, act and interact, here is a balanced narrative combined wit...
Trusting and believing
A pair of British imports explores faith of different kinds. Millions, directed by Danny Boyle from a script by Frank Cottrell Boyce, is by far the slicker of the two....
Keanu to the rescue
Hell wants him, heaven won’t take him, earth needs him.” So proclaims the poster for Constantine. It sounds like an ad for a previous Keanu Reeves movie, the ridiculous Devil’s Advocate...
Beginnings: An early Lent
Those of us who spend a major portion of life in church keep track of time by the sequence of the liturgical or church year as well as by the calendar year....
Unlisted: Influential evangelicals
List-making is a peculiarly modern obsession. The top 20 basketball teams. The top ten best sellers. Ten ways to trim your thighs....
Century Marks
Acting out: Playwright Arthur Miller, who died last month, likened politics to acting....
Parochial politics: The religious divide in the Ukraine
Viktor Yushchenko’s 52-to-42 percent victory over Viktor Yanukovych in the December 26 election in Ukraine reflected not only the centuries-old schism between western and eastern Ukraine, but also ...
Star-spangled hoops: Not all schools salute the flag
At this time of the winter countless high school basketball teams are trying to dribble, pass and shoot their way to a state championship....
God willing: Lincoln on the divine mystery
In September 1862, Union troops were soundly defeated by Confederate forces led by Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee at Manassas Junction, Virginia....
House calls: A vanishing form of ministry
A church I pastored in Portland, Oregon, ran an after-school children’s program. One afternoon someone came to tell me that twin brothers, aged six, had pushed a little girl during a play period....
New Bible woos young adults, skirts critics: Inclusive language
When Zondervan published in 2002 an inclusive-language version of the New Testament by the translators of the older, best-selling New International Version (NIV) Bible, vociferous criticism poured ...
Bible verses compared: Improving clarity in contemporary English
The recently published TNIV, now with an Old Testament translation that continues the shift toward gender-inclusive language, also strives to improve clarity in contemporary English, judging by a c...
Former White House aide says Bush failed on "poor people stuff." "The White House gets what the White House really wants.": "The White House gets what the White House really wants."
A former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives says President Bush has failed to support the program as he had promised....