Latest Articles
Selling the Reformation
Luther understood the “aesthetics of the book” but not the economics of the book. He never made a pfennig from his publications.
United Methodist leadership recommends deferral of LGBT decisions
c. 2016 Religion News Service...
Methodists vote to cut ties with group some consider anti-Israel
c. 2016 Religion News Service...
Other people’s faith in you
You knew about weakness before you were ordained. Yet something made you get out of the boat and try to walk.
Communion
I held two small first communion classes for a few students from the church. It had been a while since I organized a class like this, so I felt a little rusty. The book that I used to use (and that I loved) had gone out of print. I cobbled together some resources and we talked about baptism and sacraments and words along with things that you can touch. We drew pictures and watched a scene from the movie Holes, and read a couple of stories about meals in the Bible. We talked a little bit about the Passover, and we ended up talking about trusting God, that God comes to us in this meal.
It was not everything, but it was something.
Spiritual striving for American identity
The question of American identity has historically been both complex and contested. What’s more, it often yields mythic notions rooted in exceptionalist dogmas like election, commission, moral regeneracy, sacred land, and innocent past.
Embedded in religious American exceptionalism is the American Dream: if an individual works hard, perseveres, and is a good citizen, there is no limit to how far she can advance.
Beethoven for a Later Age, by Edward Dusinberre
The sacred is experienced in liminal spaces where profound silence happens. But behind the silence is activity.
Methodist supporters of Israel-related divestment regroup after setback
c. 2016 Religion News Service...
June 5, 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Luke 7:11-17
In Luke’s Gospel, many of Jesus’ encounters with people are described in terms of whether or not they have faith. Yet this week’s story of the widow of Nain stands in contrast: the person in need never asks for help.
Confirmed and sent out: Fostering encounters with God
Encounters with God happen, and they are known by their liberating effects. How can confirmation class support such encounters?
Teresa Pasquale Mateus and Sacred Wounds
Join Derrick Weston and Teresa Pasquale Mateus, as they talk about Teresa's new book.
Factory-farmed meat has been sacrificed to idols
Joking with vegetarians about how good meat tastes is old hat. We vegetarians have heard them all.
Time traveling
In the summer of 2013, our family moved to Cairo, Egypt to serve as mission co-workers for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) living and working with the 150-year-old Presbyterian seminary there. Because of the sensitivity of our work and the moment in the life of Egypt, we didn’t share much online of our work and experiences while we were there.
Now we are living and working back in the United States and are still trying to process all that we experienced those two years: church life, politics, culture, and of course the hundreds of windows we walked through into another time.
Supreme Court sends cases on contraceptive mandate back to lower courts
The Supreme Court sought a compromise on challenges by nonprofit religious groups to the federal requirement that their insurance offer free coverage of contraceptives to female employees....
Inside the refugee city: Anthropologist Rahul Oka on Kakuma, Kenya
"Maybe 5 percent of refugees are ever resettled. Meanwhile, human life is always more than survival."
Episode 28: Jennifer Morrow and Timothy Ross
Matt talks to Jennifer Morrow, pastor of Rowayton United Methodist Church in Rowayton, Connecticut, and Timothy Ross, pastor of Hopwood Christian Church in Johnson City, Tennessee, about their weekly sermon collaboration, editing each other’s work, and listening for God’s movement in each other’s congregation.
Lest I be judged
In my first year of seminary, one of my professors suggested an exercise to our class that sounded fairly simple. He encouraged us to go to a public place, such as a shopping mall, and to watch people.
“Note your reactions to those you see,” he told us.
Transformed by Spirit-Chi
The Spirit’s loving, life-giving, transformative power—Divine Eros—connects us, moves within us, and can heal the wounds of our division.
Repeat testimony
In an era of partisan politics, it's difficult to tell the truth. The complaints about Confirmation reveal a lack of progress.
Children of the father?
Lutherans are trained to hear the scriptures as proclaiming either law or gospel. By "law" they mean not passages from the Old Testament but all of the Bible's bad news: the sins we commit, the misery we experience, the sorrows we inflict on one another, the death we anticipate, the distance from God that diminishes our lives. By "gospel" they mean not the final reading on Sunday morning but the good news of the mercy given by a loving God, wherever in the Bible it is proclaimed.