Latest Articles
Religion and Violence, by Hent de Vries
This thoughtful, well-researched book seeks to develop and apply a distinctive philosophical approach to reflection on religion--an approach that goes beyond the traditional methods of confess...
Taking aim
While driving home after viewing Bowling for Columbine, I tuned into a radio discussion about the Washington, D.C., sniper....
Black day in Derry
On January 30, 1972, the Civil Rights Association of Derry organized what was meant to be a peaceful march protesting the British violation of civil liberties in Northern Ireland....
Memo on M.E.M.O: Pastorally prophetic
The best part of my job is that Martin Marty occasionally sticks his head into my office, calls me “Boss” with a twinkle in his eye, and sits down to talk—as if he has nothing better to do....
Caught in the crossfire: Imagine the fear the Iraqis have lived with
Americans are fearful these days. September 11 snatched from us (forever?) a feeling of invincibility, a sense of being safe and secure from foreign invasion....
Coexisting with Saddam: IraqiChristians fear war, decry sanctions
The numbers of Christians living in Iraq, mostly Catholic and Orthodox, have been dwindling for more than two decades....
Taste test: A pastoral call
"I have become all things to all people,” Paul wrote to the Corinthians, apparently not foreseeing how we would regard his wry boast....
Interfaith ‘prayer’: What is it and should we do it?
A contemporary reader of the New Testament letter we call 1 Corinthians is likely to be a little puzzled by the amount of attention it gives to whether the Corinthian Christians could eat meat that...
Beginning again: Where New and Old Worlds meet
September 11, the war in Afghanistan, the impending war in Iraq, the devastating conflict between Israel and Palestine, the crisis in the Roman Catholic Church, the crisis in big business, children...
God as Santa: Misreading the prayer of Jabez
Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hur...
Bike lesson: Repentance and forgiveness
Children’s sermons can be times for cuteness or for expressions of theological realism. Here is a story of such realism....
A sense of place: The many horizons of Martin E. Marty
When you grow up on the prairie you learn to live with what you have. The Marty people—formerly the Martis, Swiss Lutherans who emigrated to America in 1869—had dirt. Nebraska dirt....
True grit: Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
I’ve never been totally honest about baptismal vows. I bet Joshua would have been.
Which Protestants?
Randall Balmer and Lauren Winner try the impossible in Protestantism in America: to lay out in 200 pages the history and current state of American Protestantism for an audience of students...
Your Word Is Truth, edited by Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus and The Free Church and the Early Church, edited by D.H. Williams
Protestants are not characteristically staunch upholders of tradition. Nor do they instinctively appeal to "tradition" when faced with life's crises....
The Miner's Canary, by Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres
Deep underground, miners need a way to monitor the purity of the air. Before technology offered precise monitoring instruments, miners brought canaries with them....
A New Christianity for a New World, by John Shelby Spong
For many who share the liberal perspective, Spong certainly champions the right causes....
Bookish: Reading and the pastoral vocation
I grew up with books. My parents valued books and taught me to treat books with respect and affection....
Planning the aftermath: A postwar Iraq
When he was running for president, George W. Bush decried “nation building.” It was not the task of the U.S., he insisted, to bring order to chaotic countries. The U.S....