Latest Articles
Paying attention to youth culture
By Josephine A. Long and Carl I. Fertman, Youth Leadership: A Guide to Understanding Leadership Development in Adolescents. (Jossey Bass, 243 pp.)...
For richer, for poorer
About a dozen years ago, I took a bunch of rich kids from midtown Atlanta on a mission trip to rural Kentucky. To be fair, many of them did not know they were rich....
Teacher’s credentials
Doctor Laura, the second-hottest thing in talk radio, often intrudes on my expressway reveries. Turn her on and it is hard to turn her off....
Practicing fidelity: Isaiah 7:10-17; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25
Ahaz, Paul and Joseph were three men up against the inscrutability of God....
Overmarketing
By Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace T...
From Sacrament to Contract, by John Witte Jr.
By John Witte Jr., From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition. (Westminster John Knox, 315 pp.)...
Sanctions and suffering
The United Nations inspection team, which has resumed its work in Iraq, offers the best way of curtailing Saddam Hussein's weapons program....
An occasion of sin: The UN squeeze of iraq
A constant in the conflict between the United Nations and Saddam Hussein is the imposition of economic sanctions against Iraq....
Holy drama
When I was an adolescent, one of the visions that filled my head with flash and color and glory was the French Revolution....
Kings and queens
The Larry King show on October 16 featured a discussion of antigay violence in America....
Exposed and waiting: Psalm 146; Isaiah 35:1-10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11
There's a phrase tucked away in Psalm 146 that provides the basis for our Advent hope: God "keeps his promise forever." Without that assurance there is no hope and no sense in Advent....
God and the search for moral truths
By J. B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy. (Cambridge University Press, 623 pp.)...
Passionate preaching
By Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church (Vol. 1: The Biblical Period; Vol....
Is God a Vegetarian? by Richard Alan Young
By Richard Alan Young, Is God a Vegetarian. (Open Court, 187 pp.)...
Critical Terms for Religious Studies,edited by Mark C. Taylor
Edited by Mark C. Taylor, Critical Terms for Religious Studies. (University of Chicago Press, 423 pp.)...
Counseling People with Cancer, by Jann Aldredge-Clanton
By Jann Aldredge-Clanton, Counseling People with Cancer. (Westminster John Knox, 154 pp.)...
Alphabet land
After a six-mile bus journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, a British journalist reported that his Israeli tourist guide used the term "terrorist" 32 times....
Campaign cash
The November 3 election provided lots of intriguing exit polls and voter-turnout figures, but one number that really stands out has a dollar sign attached to it--$1.3 billion, the amount spent on e...
After the storm: Report from Honduras
When I moved with my family to Tegucigalpa two years ago, we assured our friends that compared to the other places we had lived in Central America, the Honduran capital was a tranquil and relativel...
Answerizing
A pastor calls the kids to the altar rail for yet another children's sermon and says: "I am thinking of something that is brown, has a bushy tail, and every fall gathers acorns to itself....