Latest Articles
Singing of sex: Rereading the Song of Songs
Some exegetes and preachers have tried to persuade us that the Song of Songs is an elaborate allegory about the love of God for Israel or of Christ for the church....
Reconciled in worship: An accidental ecumenism
When my wife, Darrah, and I met Andy in the Los Angeles airport, we thought we would never have a real conversation with him....
An outbreak of Easter (Luke 5:1-11)
By Luke 5 Jesus is master not only of the word of God, but also of fish.
Crisis of identity: A clash over faith and learning
It is often said that academic squabbles are so nasty because the stakes are so low. But at Baylor University the squabbles are nasty because the stakes are so high....
Things get nasty (Jeremiah 1:4-10; Luke 4:21-30)
Those of us who have been trained to make rhetorical peace with the congregation marvel at the freedom of Jesus to preach over their heads, to wound in order to heal, to use their own beloved texts against them. How sly of the common lectionary to pair this linguistic assault by Jesus at Nazareth with Paul’s pretty words on love. Poor preachers. Sometimes we love our people in the name of Christ, enduring just about everything with them, and sometimes we love them by throwing the Book at them.
Book 'em: Jeremiah 1:4-10; Luke 4:21-30
Those of us who have been trained to make rhetorical peace with the congregation marvel at the freedom of Jesus to preach over their heads, to wound in order to heal, to use their own beloved texts against them. How sly of the common lectionary to pair this linguistic assault by Jesus at Nazareth with Paul’s pretty words on love. Poor preachers. Sometimes we love our people in the name of Christ, enduring just about everything with them, and sometimes we love them by throwing the Book at them.
Get out of here: Luke 5:1-11
It’s too soon in Luke or the new year for an Easter story. Still, any time we’re working the night shift with Jesus, we must be prepared for an outbreak of Easter. We witness what it’s like to be astounded by a death-defying Jesus, moved from failure and scarcity to life and triumph. It’s wonderful.
Holy highways
Lamenting the free-spirited nature of Gen-Xers, a monastic friend of mine once told his abbot that the...
Graven Ideologies
Because Idolatry has never really been about the worship of stone and wood, the mere prohibition of graven ima...
Unfettered Hope: A Call to Faithful Living in an Affluent Society
It can be hard to keep up with Marva J. Dawn, since she usually produces a book a year....
Property rights
Before the advent of drug traffickers and serial killers, films often focused on conflicts over real estate....
Century Marks
Retrospective challenge: Joanna Jepson, an Anglican priest in Britain, is legally challenging an abortion that took place in 2001....
Are we better off? Nostalgia for the 1970s: Nostalgia for the 1970s
The 1970s—that era of fuel shortages and economic “stagflation”—is not normally the subject of nostalgia (That ’70s Show!...
Saddam in the dock: Who will judge him?
A half century after the Nuremberg trials, the United Nations set up war crimes tribunals, in 1993 for Yugoslavia and in 1994 for Rwanda....
Church of refugees: Into Egypt—and Manhattan
My installation as pastor at a Manhattan congregation began with a festive outdoor procession weaving through public housing projects and then looping around to the parking lot near the pricey apar...
Emerging God: Theology for a complex universe
Theologians are paying attention to strange recommendations about theology from financier John Templeton—and not just because Templeton has the resources of a large foundation behind his idea...