Latest Articles
Reading with Deeper Eyes
One of the best things about William Willimon's new book is that he introduces us to serious, spiritually significant works of fiction and makes us want to read them. One of the worst is that we might be tempted to take Willimon's book as a shortcut, using his summaries of great novels as a substitute for reading them.
Globalizing adoption: Linking children and adoptive parents
Millions of unwanted children around the world languish either in foster homes or "foster warehouses"—bleak government-run institutions where they are ignored by an indifferent staff....
Identity check
Mainliners are not the only ones worrying about an eroding theological identity....
Plain living: The search for simplicity
The Joneses are surrendering!" a TV news reporter proclaims....
Proclaiming Jubilee—for whom?
Jubilee 2000 is gaining momentum. Centers for the movement have arisen in more than 40 countries, and numerous churches and nongovernmental organizations have signed on to the campaign....
God so loves the wheat: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Anyone who's ever grown peas, at least in my neck of the woods, can appreciate the parable of the wheat and the weeds....
Victory of peace
The war over Kosovo has ended. While it was still raging, it was justified primarily in terms of the need to protect ethnic Albanians from egregious human rights abuses by the Milosevic regime....
Law without gospel
The Ten Commandments may soon, by decree, be posted on public school walls. Burnt into wood or graven as images in stone, or merely inked, they will contribute to American moral security....
Proclaiming Jubilee—for whom?
Jubilee 2000 is gaining momentum. Centers for the movement have arisen in more than 40 countries, and numerous churches and nongovernmental organizations have signed on to the campaign....
The credit revolution
Everyone seems to agree that America's moral fabric is being undermined by the unwise proliferation of consumer credit. We readily believe those who claim that easy credit fuels rampant hedonism and leads many to bankruptcy. Wistfully, we compare ourselves to ancestors who supposedly controlled their spending and never went into debt. We believe that our present affluence is a bubble that will surely burst.
Living Jesus, by Luke Timothy Johnson
Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel.By Luke Timothy Johnson. Harper SanFrancisco, 210 pp. ...
This Our Exile, by James Martin, S.J.
This Our Exile: A Spiritual Journey with the Refugees of East Africa.By James Martin, S.J. Orbis, 205 pp....
Perennial question, honest answers
May Christians ever endorse or participate in war or any form of military action?...
Cocaine state: Seeking peace in Colombia
Like ancient gaul, Colombia can be said to be divided into three parts. After several decades of undeclared civil war, leftist guerrillas dominate much of the southern part of the country....
Among the refugees: Notes from Macedonia
On the broad track of rock and dirt that runs through Cegrane, the largest refugee camp in Macedonia, a woman labors to push a wheelchair carrying a young boy with cerebral palsy....
Economics for the Earth
The Earthist Challenge to Economism: A Theological Critique of the World Bank.By John B. Cobb Jr. St. Martin's, 192 pp. ...
From world war to cold war, liberalism to liberationism
Building a Protestant Left: Christianity and Crisis Magazine, 1941-1993....
A new partnership
Vice-President Al Gore chose a safe venue—a Salvation Army gathering in Atlanta—to start talking about religion....
The easy yoke: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
I'm not sure how long ago it was, that summer afternoon at our friends' house when a neighbor drove her car dramatically into the yard and got out to say, catching her breath with every few words, ...
Leaving the church
Since I left parish ministry almost two years ago, the oddest question I have been asked is, "What do you preach about now that you have left the church?" The people who ask tend to be deeply invol...