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Rachel weeping: Matthew 2:13-23
On Christmas day we join choirs of angels and raise the strains of “Joy to the World!” Our children sing sweetly of the little Lord Jesus so peacefully asleep on the hay that he doesn’t cry out when animals wake him with off-key parts to the lullaby. But then the music changes drastically. We hear wailing and loud lamentation. Ancient mother Rachel weeps inconsolably over the loss of her children. Must we listen to this? Have we no season to block out the sounds of grief?
Following Red: Keys to a child's heart
I got the news that Red Davis had died in his hometown of Marshall, Texas. I cried when I heard it, though I only met him a couple of times....
What about Mary? Protestants and Marian devotion
The name of the Theotokos expresses the whole mystery of God’s saving dispensation. —St. John of Damascus (655-750)...
What about Mary?
Protestants and Marian devotion
What I want for Christmas: A prayer rug
I am surprising my wife, Lisa, with a rug for Christmas, and since she isn’t a reader of this magazine, I trust my secret is safe with you. We weren’t looking for a rug; it just showed up....
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Rarely is theology important in proportion to its difficulty. Hart’s book is....
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In this cautionary “what if” political fable, Roth hypothesizes that in 1940 aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, an ardent isolationist who was sympathetic ...
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Some might judge this collection of 280 portraits from the 100-year plus history of the National Geographic to be voyeuris...
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Eleven-year-old Naomi Soledad León Outlaw and her younger brother Owen have lived for seven years in a California trailer park with their maternal grea...
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Maggie Smith’s 1969 Oscar-winning performance as the title character, a teacher at an all-girls school in Edinburgh in the 1930s who intones that “a...
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A Festive Baroque Christmas. The Choir and Orchestra of the Academy of Ancient Music, directed by Paul Goodwin....
Hope in Bethlehem
The suffering of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation can be documented through broad statistics: the number of peopl...
The Divine Voice
Over the past several years Stephen Webb, professor of religion and philosophy at Indiana’s Wabash College, has...
Gridiron glory
In Friday Night Lights, which features a legendary high school football program in West Texas, Coach Gary Gaines explains to his team the situation: “Gentlemen, the hopes and dreams of an en...
Cellmates
Few know blindness so profoundly as prisoners who once could see the whole world but now find the universe shrunk to the size of a cell. Inmates hear only what jailers allow, most often some version of “We own you.” As for music, the rhythm of one’s own pulse must suffice, and that hardly leads to dancing. One can even forget how to walk.
Hymn to creation: The Father's world
I recall that we used to sing “This Is My Father’s World” at the beginning of Sunday school sessions, and we would sing it every evening at church camp as we sat on the hard wooden benches....
Values and virtues: Virtues are displayed through lives of conviction sustained over time
After the battle of the presidential election came the battle over the meaning of the election. Exit polls were dissected to discern the nation’s character, especially its moral values....