Latest Articles
God on the brain: The neurobiology of faith
By James B. Ashbrook and Carol Rausch Albright, The Humanizing Brain. (Pilgrim, 233 pp.)...
Difficult, very difficult
The most amazing thing about the surrender of the two top officials of the Khmer Rouge regime--which was responsible for the deaths of about 1 million people--never made it to the headlines....
He can’t be tied down
Many of us columnists have files stuffed with Christmas items that came to our attention too late to be used during the season but are sure to be misplaced before the next year....
Apostle at my door (Matthew 5:13-20)
You are salt to the world. And if salt becomes tasteless, how is its saltiness to be restored? It is good for nothing but to be thrown away and trodden underfoot....
Millennial task force
The purported last year of the old millennium started with a vivid reminder that eschatological hopes and fears will be flourishing in the months of 1999....
Marriage as public policy: The labor government takes an interest
Marriage as a public issue has been growing in visibility in the U.S., but it has never moved to the center of public discourse....
Legislative opportunities: Religion and congress
At no time is the legislative process more frustrating than during the congressional "silly season," the last six months of the legislative cycle when members are up for election....
Pursuing the elusive van Gogh
By Kathleen Powers Erickson, At Eternity's Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent van Gogh. (Eerdmans, 192 pp.)...
Remote control: The ethics of watching
A century ago the bone weary must have come home from their labors and relaxed by watching the flames dancing in the hearth....
Cultural exchange
Today another package arrived from Ethiopia. I handed the post office clerk the yellow claim slip and he handed me the brown paper package with the exotic stamps on it....
Inverse psychology
The campaigns to discourage teens from smoking are counterproductive, says James Taranto in the American Enterprise (September-October)....
Eavesdropping: Micah 6:1-8; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12; Psalm 15
In her book Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year, Anne Lamott describes the afternoon she misplaced her father. His brain cancer had progressed to the point where he wa...
God and gender
By Rosemary Radford Ruether, Women and Redemption: A Theological History. (Fortress, 366 pp.)...
Studying Congregations, edited by Nancy T. Ammerman, Jackson W. Carroll, Carl S. Dudley and William McKinney
Edited by Nancy T. Ammerman, Jackson W. Carroll, Carl S....
Nihil Obstat, by Sabrina P. Ramet.
By Sabrina P. Ramet, Nihil Obstat: Religion, Politics, and Social Change in East-Central Europe and Russia. (Duke University Press, 340 pp.)...
Eyes on the lies
In Wim Wenders's film Far Away, So Close, two angels look out across Berlin from atop the Brandenburg Gate....
Decision-making
Democratic decision-making is second nature for most American Protestants. Is there a dispute in the church? Let's debate the issue, and then put it to a vote....
The wages of rage: A year of outrage
I must say, reading William Bennett's The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals opened my eyes to two alarming facts....
Conversation on sin: Top religion stories of 1998
Sin, contrition, repentance and forgiveness--such biblical themes were staples of talk shows, editorial pages and everyday conversations in 1998....