Latest Articles
The traveling life
Reviewing Jonathan Raban’s Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings (Pantheon) in the New York Review of Books (January 20), Larry McMurtry concentrates on the act of saying g...
He is risen! Mark 16: 1-8
What has God done? Everything. What have we done in return? Nothing.
The memory of wilderness
Night on the Flint River: An Accidental Journey in Knowing God, by Roberta Bondi...
What Are Journalists For?, by Jay Rosen
Two days after graduating from high school, I reported for duty as a summertime relief reporter for the Moline Daily Dispatch, where I covered cops and robbers, city councils and school bo...
Race, crime and justice: An unfair police practice
When four white New York policemen were accused—and eventually acquitted—of murdering an innocent, unarmed black man, the issue of race could hardly be avoided, though it could not be introduced in...
Taking the plunge: Marriage conversations
When I first told friends that David and I were having serious marriage conversations, I expected smiles and congratulations. Instead I observed raised eyebrows and puzzled frowns....
Watchers in the night: Faith at work
"Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.” So begins one of my favorite prayers, from the service for compline in ...
Supernatural beings: Redefining faith, love and hope
Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic, by Martha Beck...
Floating along?
It was with a dose of suspicion that I started reading the feature article in the New York Times Magazine (Feb....
Cat-astrophe
If anyone ever did a word search of four decades’ worth of these columns, it is not likely that cat would ever show up....
Theological wisdom, British style: Integrating theology and religious studies
Some years ago when I encountered theologian George Lindbeck of Yale Divinity School, he asked me about the Gifford Lectures which had been written by my doctoral supervisor, Donald MacKinnon....
Saving faith, evangelical witness: Gauging Brian Gerrish
Saving and Secular Faith: An Invitation to Systematic Theology, by B.A. GerrishThe Pilgrim Road: Sermons on Christian Life, by B.A. Gerrish; edited by Mary T. Stimming...
Palm Sunday (Mark 11: 1-11)
In Mark's Palm Sunday story, Jesus seems to have no understanding of rank.
The Ironic Christian’s Companion, by Patrick Henry
What does an ironic Christian look like?...
Late Antiquity, edited by G. W. Bowersock, Peter Brown and Oleg Grabar
When Arnaldo Momigliano was at the University of Chicago he used to argue that we should teach not "church history" but just "history." This is the implicit view of most of the contributors to this...
What did you call me?
John McCain was the most innovative and exciting campaigner of the presidential primary season....
Confession and renewal: The pope's action
In an issue of the magazine devoted to themes of spiritual renewal, we would underscore the significance of Pope John Paul II’s dramatic effort to renew and purify the Roman Catholic Church through...
Freedoms renounced: Church and state in Bulgaria
Bulgaria is a small country with a long history. Like other Balkan countries, it has gone through turmoil, slavery, exaltation and defeat....
Living with Bob Jones: Letter from Greenville
The furor over George W. Bush’s campaign speech at Bob Jones University is full of ironies....