Latest Articles
Going on faith: Six myths about faith-based initiatives
The White House initiative on faith-based social services, widely touted as ushering in a new era of partnership between governments and religious organizations, is based on several myths....
Pivotal leadership: Seminary strategies
Faithful, effective Christian congregations make a difference....
Stocking the shelves
At the end of summer my mother would launch her annual canning process....
No way out: Sunday, October 1, Luke 16:19-31
In Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus there is no wiggle room....
In-your-face preaching: Sunday, October 8, Luke 17:5-10
Jesus is reported to have said, “The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone tries to enter it by force...
Renouncing Satan
One Saturday morning when there was a brief lull in our domestic hubbub, I asked our 13-year-old son John what he considered to be the most important things in life....
Two religions?
Christian Contradictions: The Structures of Lutheran and Catholic Thought. By Daphne Hampson. Cambridge University Press, 323 pp., $59.95....
Trusting the Spirit, by Richard Cimino
Historian Paul Johnson compares religious organizations to icebergs. They move slowly and the changes in them are not easily seen....
Jesus in Disneyland, by David Lyon
According to Canadian sociologist David Lyon, the theory of secularization based on Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism--a "metanarrative" of the secularized acad...
Into the inferno? Rage and fear in Macedonia: Rage and fear in Macedonia
Macedonia became an independent nation without firing a single shot....
Nonviolent force
With the horrifying results of Palestinian car bombings and suicidal bombers regularly displayed in newspapers and on television, Americans are not likely to associate “nonviolent protest&rdq...
Surprised by beauty: Shining with god's glory
I was away on a retreat recently when the mirror surprised me....
World makers: A new way of seeing and naming
The people who have the best background for becoming pastors in today’s church are high school foreign language teachers,” Stanley Hauerwas declared during a recent discussion between D...
Liturgy for life: The political meaning of worship
In exploring the minister’s public obligations, it would seem sensible to bypass the activity of worship and concentrate on the minister’s social service, on the grounds that the latter...
Sin insulation: Sunday, September 16, Exodus 32:7-14; Psalm 51:1-10; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10
The sins revealed in these first three scripture passages are blockbusters—betrayal, idolatry, adultery and violence—the raw material for larger-than-life stories and films....
Profit and loss: Sunday, September 23, Amos 8:4-7; Luke 16:1-13
Recently several pastors and seminary students told me that they will do “whatever it takes . . . to be effective in ministry . . . to turn their church around . . ....
Maturing downward
What are your ambitions?” an administrative colleague asked me recently. I am not often speechless, but this time I didn’t know what to say....