Latest Articles
President Bush and immigration reform: The real problem
In January 2004 George Bush outlined a new approach to immigration. He would grant special visas to foreign workers which would be valid for three years and renewable....
China syndrome: The persecution of Falun Gong
Walking toward Chicago’s Federal Plaza a few months ago, I saw what appeared to be a rather large aggregate of people engaging in aerobic exercises....
Campus tour: The university of all things
Summer is sailing past and we are trying to catch up to it in our 1988 Volvo with its worn upholstery, carpet of crushed Ritz crackers and Freon-guzzling air conditioner....
Thank God for the secular: Thank God for religious freedoms
Turkey advertises itself both as “secular,” thanks to its constitution of 1923, and as “98 percent Muslim.” India is called “secular,” thanks to its constitution of 1947, and is often seen as havin...
Dying to get in: Crisis on the Mexican border
Last year over 200 people lost their lives as they tried to cross the border from Mexico into Arizona. They died from dehydration in the 120-degree heat of the Sonoran Desert....
Disturbing the peace: Luke 12:49-56
In this reading from Luke we confront stark and conflictual sayings of Jesus that sit poorly with contemporary images of God. Our culture seems to prize a God with an infinite capacity for empathy, a God who is “nice.” Luke challenges this thinking. He offers a glimpse of redemption for a world that is anything but nice—and that needs much more than a nice God to redeem it.
Off the record: Luke 13:10-17
In a story that is unique to Luke, Jesus heals a nameless woman by giving her the freedom to unbend and stand up straight after she has lived for years in crippling bondage. The woman has not asked to be healed. She simply finds herself in Jesus’ presence—and that leads to healing and life for her. This beautiful story, however, is not without conflict.
Nazi Christians
Most of the Nazi leaders considered themselves not merely Christians but instruments of God’s will, proclaims Richard ...
Coming Out in Christianity: Religion, Identity and Community
While “gay Christian” is an oxymoron to some conservative Protestants, it is an equally bewildering term to many rad...
Sexuality and Holy Longing: Embracing Intimacy in a Broken World
Lisa Graham McMinn explores hot-button topics like abortion, homosexuality, masturbation, pornography and other s...
Reading the Bible in the Strange World of Medicine
For more than two decades Alan Verhey has been helping the Christian community understand the interconnections between our comm...
Recurring nightmare
The news that director Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs) was making a new version of the 1962 cold-war thriller The Manchurian Candidate provoked howls of protest from purists...
Fallen ones: Combatants and innocent bystanders
If you walk south out of Princeton, New Jersey, on Mercer Street for a mile or so you discover how the street got its name....
Dare to discipline? Kerry and communion: Kerry and communion
Is there anything laypeople can do to get themselves kicked out of the United Methodist Church?” My question stumped the speaker, expert on Methodist church law though he was....
Evangelicals decry Bush use of churches: Campaign sends laundry list of duties
A laundry list of duties sent to conservative Christian volunteers by the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign is causing alarm among evangelical leaders who are concerned that the use of congregations...
Cuban-born bishop likens ploy to Castro: Castro asked for names of church members too
In a Fourth of July message to clergy of the Diocese of Southeast Florida, Episcopal Bishop Leo Frade expressed “grave concern” that the Bush-Cheney campaign has asked volunteers to use church memb...
U.S. to deport Fuller professor back to Finland: Karkkainen doesn't fit post-9/11 visa definitions
An international expert in ecumenical and Pentecostal studies is being forced to leave the United States at the end of July because he does not fit post-9/11 visa definitions for continuing as a te...
PCUSA barely keeps ban on ordaining gays: A four-vote margin
It may have been a close vote, but the stance of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on issues of homosexuality remained unchanged in Richmond, and will stand for at least two more years as the denomi...