Latest Articles
Happy pastors: What is happening to Protestant clergy?
Something has gone terribly wrong with Protestant clergy. The majority of them say that they are “happy, content,” as a recent Christian Century news headline proclaims (March 27-April 2)....
Back to the burning bush: Leadership 101
Leadership is all the rage at universities these days. There are courses in microleadership and macroleadership, leadership skills and leadership techniques....
Thirst quencher: John 7:37-39; Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
In the original Christian Pentecost are seeds of a universalist impulse, a catholic principle.
Long division: Acts 1:6-14; John 17:1-11
The unity of Christ's followers is not incidental to our salvation.
Living the questions: The converging worlds of Rowan Williams
Two years ago, at the relatively young age of 49, Rowan Williams became archbishop of the Church in Wales, one of the provinces of the Anglican Communion....
A lost virtue
Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue. Paul Woodruff. Oxford University Press, 248 pp., $19.95....
Earth Habitat, edited by Dieter Hessel and Larry Rasmussen
Topical collections of essays typically range from the barely tolerable to the merely acceptable. This is an alluring exception....
The priestly life: Crisis and opportunity in the Catholic Church
The scandal of sexual abuse among priests and its institutional cover-up presents the Catholic Church with a staggering crisis....
Megachurch, mini-congregation: Pastoral care in the large congregation
This issue features a topic in which I have a personal interest—the megachurch (see Wanted: Megapastors), though I deplore the term a...
Wanted: Megapastors: Can successors find success?
With his folksy, conversational style, Pastor Frank Harrington turned Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta into a megachurch over three decades....
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?...