Latest Articles
Moral constructions of HIV
Once gay men were identified in public as the primary victims of and imagined cause of the disease, it became a moral crisis rather than a medical one.
Varieties of new churches
Two churches in my town offer a contrast in style, substance, and mission. We both love Jesus and long to love our neighbors.
The consequences of deliverance
Transformation often has a price. There is a cost to freedom, even freedom from demons.
War No More, edited by Lawrence Rosenwald
This comprehensive collection, spanning 300 years and 150 authors, includes excerpts from political writers such as Martin Luther King Jr., Daniel Berrigan, Dorothy Day, Shirley Chisholm, and Barack Obama, but also a surprising array of artistic voices: Mark Twain, Joan Baez, Denise Levertov, and Bill Watterson.
Guns made for slaughter
An assault weapons ban wouldn't end violence or hate—but it would reduce the body count.
Seven possibilities for church
Here are some projections and assumptions I face in my current context—and responses that reflect what the church I serve is called to be.
The abyss
There are very few idiomatic tropes that carry meaning across generations, let alone thousands of years. Mental Floss generates thousands of clicks by giving readers insights into how words and phrases have changed over the years. There are, however, a few images that carry weight over centuries, one of which we hear from the lips of Legion in the Gospel lesson for Sunday. Keenly aware of the power of Jesus, the demons “begged him not to order them to go back to the abyss,” Luke tells us.
While this fear is from the demons in this story, there seems to be something universal about their fear.
Two words that shaped the civil rights movement
I’m in Greenwood, Mississippi today for a rally to commemorate the 50th anniversary of an event that marked a major turning point in the civil rights movement: a speech by Stokely Carmic...
Ordinary grace
The reversals in this book aren’t easy. There is nothing sentimental or giddy about them. They are real. They are ordinary.
Interfaith Kosovo gathering builds on area’s historic Muslim-Jewish friendship
Three years ago, Joshua Stanton was walking around Peja, a Balkan city where the skyline includes the minarets of three historic mosques, when he decided to put on his yarmulke....
Gene editing, race, and the social contract
Imagine Jennifer Doudna working in the lab overnight, her eyes sore, her head pulsing, and her mind swirling with an existential crisis. Utilizing a bacterial cell’s self-defense mechanism, the geneticist has mastered the ability to reproduce and guide gene-editing technology, otherwise known as CRISPR-Cas9. This technology could save countless lives, cure genetic diseases, and reverse the effects of cancer. But it could also advance efforts at human enhancement, leading to a revival of modern eugenics.
In December, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine held a three-day summit on CRISPR technology.
Small things
Recently a grandmother told me how much her fourth grade granddaughter already loves a new three-year-old in our congregation. Their family just started visiting, and when the children, all ages, come together for to play and draw and wonder about the scripture readings, the little girl sings her own song about how much she loves Jesus. They are making a connection, beginning a relationship, not based on being in the same grade, but based on being in the same body of Christ.
Papal politics and perils
Politi's account reveals much of what happened among the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel on those days in March 2013.
July 3, 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Isaiah 66:10-14; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Jesus sends his disciples out “like lambs in the midst of wolves.” We live in a time when intimacy is erased, privacy laughable, rhetoric rude and rusty. The notion of going out as lambs to wolves is apt, even if the wolves and lambs may be interchangeable.
A baptism in a world of violence
When I parked the minivan in the church lot, it still sounded like the type of horror we have had no choice but to become stoic about: 20 dead in a bar, as many more wounded, a dead shooter and a thicket of questions. By the time I returned it had become something different.
Thoughts and prayers, hand-wringing, and faithlessness
I posted my own brief prayer on Facebook Sunday after learning of the shooting in Orlando, and I’ve shared a few posts from others that moved or touched me. But I confess that I’m a bit tired of well-crafted prayers proliferating on my social media pages. At some point it starts to feel like a prayer competition. No doubt most of these prayers are heartfelt and helpful to many, but I’ve seen so many of them in recent years.
At the same time that thoughts and prayers have begun to grate on me, I am far beyond that with American society.
Light’s remaining mysteries
Yes, we’re surrounded by ubiquitous light, but its mysteries have not been wholly conquered.
German trombone choirs give churches a boost: Music gives German church a boost
(The Christian Science Monitor) On a recent Monday evening, tourists and locals dining at restaurants next to Leipzig’s St....