Latest Articles
Piercing the heart
He was sitting quietly, almost impassively, as I talked to a group of people gathered in Zagreb at the launching of the Croatian translation of my book Exclusion and Embrace....
Provocative worship
Fewer people should be dozing off during worship, if items I'm seeing in church bulletins are any indication....
General principles: Luke 18:9-14
I had a childhood friend whose mother yelled at her a lot. Her mother's ravings, however, were rarely attached to identifiable offenses....
Encountering the texts
By Herman L. Sinaiko, Reclaiming the Canon: Essays on Philosophy, Poetry, and History. (Yale University Press, 338 pp.)...
Worship with One Accord, by Geoffrey Wainwright and Christian Liturgy, by Frank C. Senn
By Geoffrey Wainwright, Worship with One Accord: Where Liturgy & Ecumenism Embrace. (Oxford University Press, 276 pp.)...
Mayhem, by Sissela Bok
By Sissela Bok, Mayhem: Violence as Public Entertainment. (Addison Wesley Longman, 194 pp.)...
Appalling behavior
The president's conduct as revealed in Kenneth Starr's report to Congress is appalling and indefensible. He has been self-indulgent and careless of the truth and of other people's lives....
Scholar for the church: Raymond E. Brown, 1928-98
The Death of Raymond E. Brown, S.S., on August 8 in Redwood City, California, came as a thief in the night--unexpected, unwanted and unwelcomed....
Managing the global economy
The riots that struck Jakarta, Indonesia, in May, forcing President Suharto out of office, were in part politically motivated; Suharto's 32-year reign was anything but democratic....
Toward a common morality
By Hans Kung, A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics. (Oxford University Press, 315 pp.)...
The subway incident
A couple of weeks ago I rode the subway to the Atlanta airport. It is not a proper subway, since much of the track lies above ground....
Partisan polemics
By Charlotte Allen, The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus. (Free Press, 383 pp.)...
Millennial musings
When there were only 474 days left until the new millennium--or 840, depending on when you think the 21st century starts--the Religion Newswriters Association asked people to comment on how the pre...
Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo, by David Toole
By David Toole, Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo: Theological Reflections on Nihilism, Tragedy, and Apocalypse. (Westview, 352 pp.)...
The Community of the Future, edited by Frances Hesselbein, Marshall Goldsmith, Richard Beckhard and Richard F. Schubert
Edited by Frances Hesselbein, Marshall Goldsmith, Richard Beckhard and Richard F. Schubert, The Community of the Future. (Jossey-Bass, 285 pp.)...
Films of challenge and hope
The text for this first-ever column in its new location is taken from the first chapter of John Irving's novel A Prayer for Owen Meany: "I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice-...
Multiculturally challenged
There's much talk in the churches these days about "multicultural" sensitivity, and Western Christians often worry about participating in Western "cultural imperialism." But such rhetoric can appea...
Spiritual practice: Piety in America
To focus on spiritual practice means emphasizing the importance of making a deliberate attempt to relate to the sacred....
Against privatization: The genius of Social Security
Frances Perkins knew how difficult life could be....