Latest Articles
Bridgework: Undoing Homelessness
What does it take to break the cycle of homelessness? Can churches that are stretching to provide homeless shelters and soup kitchens do anything to pull people into self-sufficiency?...
The Palestinian story: An interview with Naim Ateek
Naim Stifan Ateek, who recently retired after 13 years as canon of St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem, is the author of Justice and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation....
Faith and learning: An exchange: Forming ministers
Ronald White does not state the precise problem to which his proposals are addressed....
Faith and learning: An exchange: A plea for integration
In a recent search to fill a position in New Testament, the search committee at my seminary had difficulty finding candidates who could integrate learning with faith....
Partings
All good things must come to an end,” Mother used to intone whenever, as a small girl, I balked at leaving off some delightful activity or grieved at the departure of a favorite guest....
Letters not written
Once in a while I receive a letter here that is so nutty, so outrageous or so hateful that I do not answer it....
Doing the right thing (Galatians 6:1-6, 7-16)
The family is a funny institution. We make much of being related to each other, of sharing common ancestors, common history, common DNA....
Nice text: 1 Corinthians 13
When 1 Corinthians 13 crosses my path, I don’t greet it with a great deal of enthusiasm....
Nice text: 1 Corinthians 13
When 1 Corinthians 13 crosses my path, I don’t greet it with a great deal of enthusiasm....
Solzhenitsyn’s century
By D. M. Thomas, Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A Century in His Life. (St. Martin's, 583 pp.)...
Native sons
By Will D. Campbell, And Also with You: Duncan Gray and the American Dilemma. (Providence House, 274 pp.)...
Where Trouble Sleeps, by Clyde Edgerton
Listre, North Carolina, exists only in the mind of Clyde Edgerton, but the conversation there is as real as any you’d hear at a bait shop or diner. And Edgerton’s delivery is wickedly funny....
Lived Religion in America, edited by David D. Hall
David D. Hall addresses the gap between academic theology and the diverse ways people of faith “live religion” in their circumstances....
American mayhem: School shootings
When did teenagers start gunning down their classmates and teachers? Over the past two years, nine different schools have become scenes of murder....
Evil ways: A Morality Play
The faces of Monica Lewinsky, Ken Starr and Bill Clinton are like red figures against a blue background, dancing in a Matisse-like circle, arms outstretched, hands touching, each one mysteriously (...
Rage and beyond: Father’s day initiative
A naÏve celebration of parents and parenthood sometimes takes place in church on Father’s Day....
Giving to religion: How generous are we?
There is good reason to believe that Americans are receiving an overly optimistic picture of charitable giving in the U.S....
Gratitude at last
I have come to see gratitude as primary among the spiritual virtues, the wellspring, as it were. I also think it makes a suitable subject for my last column in the Faith Matters series....
Spare places
Near the end of the WPA in 1939, I painted a large round sign for a building in Battle Creek, Nebraska (pop....
Stay and follow: Psalm 22: 19-28; Luke 8: 26-39
He was buried alive, this man of the Gerasenes. He was alive, but he lived in a graveyard among the tombs....