Latest Articles
Short-term mission trips: Beyond good intentions
After Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America in 1998, hundreds of volunteer mission teams descended on Nicaragua and Honduras. Many came from churches in the United States....
Nonviolent voices: Peace churches make a witness
It is not a propitious time to be a pacifist in the United States. Polls indicate that over 90 percent of Americans continue to support the military campaign in Afghanistan....
Three-dimensional faith: Hebrews 2:10-18
While vacationing in Orlando, Florida, my wife and I visited the “Terminator 2 Show” at Universal Studios. We entered the studio and received special 3-D glasses....
A moral squint: Bombs and chaos
After a particularly heavy U.S. bombardment of Kunduz, al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters initially refused to surrender....
Translating the faith: Translators and garblers
Chinese translators and Smithsonian Institution label-writers can be garblers....
Mule ride
Once Mary said yes to the angel, she signed on for a trip with no way out.
Breaking the cycle
I See Satan Fall Like Lightening. By René Girard. Translated by James G. Williams. Orbis, 199 pp., $20.00 paperback....
Soul Survivor, by Philip Yancey
"The Christian ideal," wrote G. K. Chesterton, "has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried." Philip Yancey identifies with Chesterton's assessment....
Religion in the Modern American West, by Ferenc Morton Szasz
From the vistas of Albuquerque, where for three decades he has taught intellectual history at the University of New Mexico, Ferenc Morton Szasz has set his sights on exploring a subject neglected b...
Faith, hope and ecology: A Christian environmentalism
The only possible dialog is the kind between people who remain what they are and speak their minds....
Oil dependents: Better to sacrifice oil than blood
The U.S.’s approach to the Middle East frequently seems less policy than fated inevitability. The U.S....
Churchgoers from elsewhere: Surveys: ‘UUism' unique
Before the American Unitarian Association merged with the Universalist Church of America in 1961, the former group ran an ad campaign suggesting, “I was a Unitarian all along and never knew i...
Homo ludens: "Poised between gaiety and gravity"
Prufrockian is a term that entered the vocabulary after the 1917 publication of T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J....
Christ for the world: Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25
When I think of the Christmas story, I see the crèche that was displayed each year in the front hall of my family home....
God's absence in Advent
Every valley shall be exalted—but when?