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Schuller’s glass act: Passing the baton at the Crystal Cathedral
The ever-effervescent Robert H....
More religion, less violence: "Thick" practice of the Christian faith
Recently, in a class titled “Theology and Trauma Theory,” we read the text that catapulted Karl Barth to theological fame: Epistle to the Romans, written shortly after World War I....
On tap: Tap water, please!
The March 3 lectionary texts encouraged Christians to think about water....
To see and not to see: Acts 17:22-31; John 14:15-21
Paul refuses to let God become just another novelty.
Sticks and stones: Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; Acts 7:55-60
Faithful suffering has always been part of the calling for God’s people.
Thrashing the pundits
Near the end of Public Intellectuals, Richard Posner observes that Richard Nixon was forced from office in 1974 “because people we...
Bosnia on the cheap
When photojournalist Harrison Lloyd (David Strathairn) disappears in Vukovar in the early days of the war in Bosnia, his wife, Sarah (Andie MacDowell), refuses to believe he's been killed....
Phoning home again
While it may be coincidental that two of the most famous English-language movies of all time--Steven Spielberg's beloved E.T.--The Extra-Terrestrial and Stanley Kubrick's revered 2001:...
C.S. Lewis Then and Now, by Wesley Kort
Here's a strange book. Wesley Kort wants to retrieve the thought of C. S. Lewis and make it more readily available and usable in our cultural context. Retrieve from whom?...
Finding Cuba, by Jill Pelaez Baumgaertner
Josephine Jacobsen says that she began writing poetry when she had experiences for which no adequate language existed....
True History of the Kelly Gang, by Peter Carey
In a 1995 Simpsons episode "Bart vs. Australia" the mischievous Bart Simpson gravely offends the Australians and is forced to travel Down Under with his family to formally apologize....
The tide ofEaster: "To meet life a little boldly"
This issue contains an important article on a region unfamiliar to many of us—the turbulent Muslim countries of central Asia that border Afghanistan—and two thoughtful essays on topics theological ...
The Saudi gambit: Choices in the Middle East
Whatever the motives behind it, the land-for-peace initiative floated by Saudi Arabia strikes a note of reason in the ever-escalating violence of the Middle East....
Sharing losses: New York and Afghan survivors
When she was ten years old, Deora Bodley was in a play called Compukids in which she sang a song written by her father: “My daddy always said / when he’d put me down to bed: / Rest easy, lit...
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Plaque flak: Folks in Lauderhill, Florida, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, planned a celebration of the life of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. for Saturday January 19....
Border lands: Unrest north ofAfghanistan
One of the objectives of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent pro-Western diplomacy is to reduce instability along Russia’s southern borders....
Numb about Israel: The invasion of Bethlehem
It may have been just a coincidence that the Israeli army invaded the grounds of a Christian-run school in Bethlehem while the American media were focusing their attention on the six-month annivers...
In plain view: Vacation in North Dakota
In a predictably condescending article on North Dakota in a recent New Yorker (February 18-25), Mark Singer quoted Doug Burgum of Microsoft Great Plains: “We have this deep-seated Scandinavi...
Enter here: Acts 2:42-47, 1 Peter 2:19-25, John 10:1-10
I had already attended two colleges when one day I wandered into a third. The sign above the door of an old mansion in Fort Vancouver, Washington, read “Evergreen State College.”...