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Alternative universe: Under John Paul, the church as a total culture
Where were you on the day John Paul II died? I won’t soon forget, for I was caught in a looking-glass world of improbable encounters and reactions....
A new Powell doctrine: A preference for words over military force
In the film The Interpreter, Silvia Broome (Nicole Kidman) tells Secret Service agent Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) that she works as an interpreter at the United Nations because she prefers word...
The pope and me: Claiming acquaintance
It’s easy to find weird epitaphs in old graveyards, in books of quotations or via the Internet....
When in Rome: Hopes for Benedict XVI
It was fascinating to be in Rome on the day Pope John Paul II died and to be in Italy as the College of Cardinals elected Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to be the new head of the Roman Catholic Church.<...
PCUSA, largest Korean church in dispute: Faction secedes
In a complicated dispute with its largest Korean congregation, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has brought in a former General Assembly moderator, Syngman Rhee, to lead services for denominational...
Connecticut OKs gay civil unions: First state to legalize without court order
Connecticut has become the first state to legalize same-sex unions without being forced to do so by a court....
Briefly noted
The church council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has recommended that its churchwide assembly in August approve interim sharing of the Eucharist between the ELCA and the Unit...
Strangely familiar: Imagined book tables
At a recent theology conference I made a beeline for the book table the instant a coffee break was called. But all the volumes seemed strangely familiar....
The word made rock: Matthew 7:21-29
Be like the wise man who built his house on the rock....
A doubt and a promise: Matthew 28:16-20
When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. Passages like this assure me there’s a place for me and the people I serve. Unlike John’s story of Thomas, Matthew didn’t single out one disciple as the doubter. He says that “some doubted.”
Changing and changeless: Benedict's challenge
The theology of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger played a major part in my book After Our Likeness (1998), which sought to develop a trinitarian, nonhierarchical understanding of the church....
In need of a pope? Protestants and the papacy: Protestants and the papacy
Do protestants need the papacy?...
Rule of Benedict: The pope as ecumenist
When Pope Benedict XVI announced in his first sermon that he has a “primary commitment to work without sparing energies for the reconstitution of the full and visible unity of all the followe...
Kingdom coming
We have needed a good biography of Walter Rauschenbusch for some time, and Christopher Evans has provided us with...
Out of Eden
Love, lust, forgiveness, remorse, tolerance, sin, violence and death—these are just some of the themes engaged in The ,Ballad of Jack and Rose....
Take and read
Picking up where he left off in Faith Beyond Resentment, Alison, a Catholic priest, continues to expose the subversive potential of the gospel message, especially ...
Heart of the matter: Shepherding souls
At ordination Presbyterian ministers promise to give their “energy, intelligence, imagination and love” to ministry. Sometimes just managing the institution of the church exhausts such capacities....