Latest Articles
Reckoning with apocalypse: Time to turn around
A hundred years ago many Christians envisioned Christianity winning acceptance among every country and people of the world....
Wizards and Muggles: Uses of fantasy
Scottish author J. K. Rowling has written a wildly popular series of children's books about Harry Potter....
Endings and beginnings: The NCC celebrates—and regroups
The National Council of Churches, its existence threatened by persistent deficits, inept financial management and denominational apathy, approved plans at a November 9-12 meeting to eliminate 34 st...
Edgar: Outsider and ‘salvager’
Robert Edgar, whose four-year term as general secretary of the National Council of Churches begins January 1, will commute between New York and Southern California for two months while he wraps up ...
The future of homo sapiens: A species perspective
The colleague with whom I teach astronomy likes to challenge our students with the question, "Are we any smarter than the ancient Greeks were?" We surely have a great deal more knowledge—especially...
Why men get anxious: On Susan Faludi's Stiffed
Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, by Susan Faludi...
Bridging the abyss of revenge: Forgiveness in politics
"For almost 50 years, South Korean villagers have insisted that early in the Korean War, American soldiers machine-gunned hundreds of helpless civilians under a railroad bridge near a hamlet some 1...
A true teacher
I have been dreading this semester. Bill Mallard, my colleague in historical studies at Candler School of Theology, is retiring at the end of the year....
Grave and merry
Recently I cohosted with actor John Mahoney (of the TV show Frasier) an annual event called "Jubilate." It supports Chicago's Bonaventure House, where the Alexian Brothers serve AIDS victi...
The two faces of Advent: John 1:6-8, 19-28
John stands on the frontier as the ages collide, destined to bear the impact.
The last things: Reflections on the millennium
The Apostles' creed ends with a statement of Christian belief in "the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." The second article of the Nicene Creed states that Jesus Christ "will come...
Cuban initiative
From a trip to Havana in the fall of 1980, I returned with two small statues of African female warriors, one with a machete, the other carrying a rifle....
Immodest visions: Millennial hopes
Ten years ago this month, the Berlin Wall was breached. Within months the once monolithic world of the Soviet bloc was dismantled and the claims of Karl Marx decisively discredited....
Reporting on Satan: Devil worship in Kenya?
Kenyans were sent reeling by a report made public in September by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Cult of Devil Worship in Kenya. Reactions range from ridicule to alarm....
One good teacher
We buried a fine teacher the other day. He was not a scintillating lecturer, nor was he a particularly exciting person....
Texas miracle
A reader from Texas sent us a copy of a letter issued by a church summer camp: "Dear Parent(s): As you were aware, yesterday we went to the Mary T. Meager Aquatic Center....
Cover-ups: Psalm 85
Blaise Pascal evokes a sense of existential dread in this famous line: "The eternal silence of those infinite spaces terrifies me." In his poem For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, W....
Too much irony
For Common Things: Irony, Trust and Commitment in America Today, by Jedediah PurdySoul of a Citzen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time, by Paul Rogat Loeb...