Latest Articles
Faith, learning, and scandal
Baylor transformed itself from a regional Baptist teaching institution into an internationally recognized Protestant research university—but not without scandal.
Ordinary 23C (Luke 14:25-33)
In this week’s Gospel text, the piercing hyperbole about family and discipleship normally receives top billing homiletically. However, I am newly struck by Jesus’ words regarding building a tower.
Obama uses a women's magazine to talk to men
A friend notes, “now if we could get this type of article to be printed in men's magazines, too.” Indeed. Yet a male president’s byline on a Glamour exclusive makes a powerful statement before the main text even begins.
Asking each other the right questions
There’s a scene in David Adams Richards’s novel ...
Know the world, know yourself
Nature reveals itself as ruptured, as already profaned. To rest into a landscape is to be drawn into an adulterated history.
True witness, absurd violence
Pope Francis’s response to the killing of a French priest puzzled some. But it pointed to the true nature of Christian witness.
In defense of the church building
It seems like every week I hear someone in the wider church say, “You know, the church is more than the building.”...
Of Pokemon and angels
Why is Pokemon Go so captivating? At least partly because it re-enchants the world.
Redemption revisited
Faith is formed in us by the Spirit and the life of the church. It renews our elemental confidence and creates our disposition toward the world.
When the church gets it wrong
The woman looked at me with fear, pain, and trust—all things that the church has instilled in its faithful all these centuries.
Amid tech wealth, ministries aid the homeless
Tucked behind a light industrial area of self-storage warehouses and auto parts stores in San Jose, California, is a small encampment of homeless people who live in tents along the banks of a creek...
A garden of gratitude: Poet Ross Gay
"I've learned a lot from working with trees. More important, I've worked with people on imagining how to love each other."
Anglican Church of Canada takes step toward allowing same-sex weddings
In the first step of a two-step process, Canada’s Anglican Church voted to amend its rules to allow clergy to celebrate same-sex marriages....
Mohammad El Halabi, World Vision manager, charged with diverting funds to Hamas
Israeli security officials have charged Mohammad El Halabi, the operations manager in Gaza for World Vision, with funneling tens of millions of dollars in donations to Hamas’s military wing....
Duncan Gray Jr., Episcopal civil rights leader, dies at 89
Duncan Montgomery Gray Jr., an Episcopal priest who took risky stands for integration and endured a beating for the cause, died at age 89 at his home in Jackson on July 15, according to the Episcop...
Ibtihaj Muhammad becomes first U.S. Olympian wearing a hijab
Ibtihaj Muhammad, a 30-year-old fencer, made history in Rio de Janeiro as the first U.S. Olympian to compete in a hijab....
Protesting our neighbors
I see the people I'm protesting against when I get my mail, or sort my laundry.
What is church?
Earlier this summer we held Vacation Bible School at our church. We had a morning program mostly for the children at our preschool, a few of their older sisters and brothers, and a few of our congregation's children as well.
But this year, we added something new.
The kingdom of God is like a farm
Nineteenth-century agrarians believed that community is more important than the individual and solidarity is more important than profit.