Latest Articles
Sustenance from Jeremiah
This preacher was grateful for the lectionary during September. I often argue with the choices of texts for particular Sundays....
Birmingham tragedies
Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama--The Climatic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. By Diane McWhorter. Simon & Schuster, 706 pp., $35.00....
Christian Ethics, by Robin W. Lovin
Introductory courses and treatises can test even accomplished teachers and writers. It is not easy to simplify without compromising, to be comprehensive without exceeding one's limits....
The Catholic Church, by Hans Küng. Translated by John Bowden.
A growing number of works by Catholic authors such as Garry Wills, Eugene Kennedy and Donald Cozzens, as well as books by numerous feminist writers, call for greater honesty regarding the problems ...
New Creation, by Frank C. Senn
Anyone who uses the word "worldview" in a book title had better be prepared to deliver. Frank C....
Befriending Life, edited by Beth Porter, with Susan Brown and Philip Coulter
His primary expectation was that you keep your heart open to life," writes Fred Bratman of his friend Henri Nouwen....
Apocalypse now? Threats to survival: Threats to survival
For those trapped in the Twin Towers or the Pentagon, that fiery hell must have seemed apocalyptic....
Visions of sacrifice: The terrorists' point of view
It’s remarkable that the media and government found the five-page letter from Mohamed Atta to his fellow hijackers remarkable....
A different kind of funeral: Requiem for a gangbanger
When George called to ask for help with his grandson’s funeral, I didn’t hesitate. I’d do anything for the man....
Spiritual counsel: An art in transition
In 1993 John Patton coined the phrase “paradigm shift” to describe a dramatic turn in the practice of pastoral care....
Light in darkness
On September 11, I was scheduled to lecture on Simone Weil’s classic essay, “The Love of God and Affliction.” I never made it to class—it was canceled due to the devastating, horrifying news of the...
Festival films
Shrapnel in Peace opens with a close-up of a woman in traditional Muslim attire who is chopping into hard ground with a small shovel....
Seismic changes
Those who occupy pulpits, be they the bully pulpits of the president or other nationally prominent people or the local yet influential pulpits of pastors, have special responsibilities for discerni...
Acute need: Medical-religious partnerships
Pastor Jeff Sumner was attending a health screening program led by members of his church when he learned that his blood sugar level was unusually high....
Wild fire: Sunday, November 11. Job 19: 23-27a.
“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall se...
Gasping for air: Sunday, November, 4. Isaiah 1:10-18.
“When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood...
Sexual enslavement
War's Dirty Secret: Rape, Prostitution, and Other Crimes Against Women. Edited by Anne Llewellyn Barstow. Pilgrim, 257 pp., $19.95....
Gandhi’s Passion, by Stanley Wolpert
In a cynical and materialistic age, Gandhi will always be seen as hopelessly out of touch: a holy man who is wholly wrong, a man who lacked understanding of the way things work and the way things h...
A Visit to Vanity Fair, by Alan Jacobs
Because of his uncommonly fine use of language and the gracious character which emerges from his work, Alan Jacobs, who teaches English at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, has always struck me...
The Stranger Next Door, by Arlene Stein
Every liberal ought to read this sociological study of a successful Christian-right, local initiative in a small Oregon town....