Latest Articles

c. 2016 Religion News Service...

In this week’s Gospel reading, many people praise Jesus’ teaching—until he claims that he is the fulfillment of the scripture he reads. It is difficult for American Christians to grasp how shocking Jesus’ announcement is to a first-century synagogue.

Iglesia Hispana Emanuel has about 100 members. José Guillermo Salamea is teaching some 40 of them how to play an instrument.

Here are the Century magazine articles that got read the most online this year.

Over the years, I've taught three different series on the Acts of the Apostles, and I'm sure that by the time I hang it up I will have taught at least five more. Each time, I try to do something a little different—never a straight, verse-by-verse exposition of the text but always a particular angle or take on the text as a whole. Most recently, I led a group through an exploration of the first ten chapters of Acts that focused on the different characters of the story.  Eventually, we got to Acts 8 and read about Philip, the evangelist who first took the good news of Jesus the Christ to Samaria.

c. 2016 Religion News Service...

c. 2016 Religion News Service...

A lack of ID caused problems for immigrants—as well as for the police who encountered them. Through a series of dialogues, a solution emerged.

Here are the most-read Century Blog posts of the year.

The recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino have led to an increase in anti-Islamic rhetoric in the U.S. There have been calls to limit the immigration of Muslims. Some have focused as well on the threat from within, arguing for the registration of all Muslims—or even their internment, as with the camps where Japanese Americans were sent during World War II.  From the inception of the United States, our government has put in place measures to determine who belongs to this great experiment and who does not.

c. 2016 Religion News Service...

A  recent report detailing the spiritual, demographic, and financial challenges faced by small congregations meant little to Robin Bartlett, pastor of First Church in Sterling, Massachusetts.<...

From Paul’s letter, we can infer that the Corinthians tended toward the same bias from which many of us suffer: the belief that there is little collective wisdom in the church.

"What was the point of that movie?" my son asked, without hostility. He knew that what he'd seen was about more than what he'd seen.

Here are Carol Howard Merritt's most-read posts of the year.

Nevertheless, I think that John’s prologue has much more to say. In speaking about this Word become flesh, it also speaks powerfully to us about what it means to be human. Over the years, I kept returning to a few verses that changed the way that I saw the entire prologue and which consequently changed my entire theology.

It was a blog post from a wise soul that struck me, if only because it struck so close to home. The idea behind it: that folks who are looking to serve Jesus should be willing to get themselves out of their localized comfort zone, and travel to wherever it is that God is calling them. It was also a message to congregations, calling them to break out of their desire to take the easiest path, choosing those who they know and are in relationship with, rather than making the more difficult call to reach out to an unknown.

Can the word God be separated from the particular tradition by which God is known? Christians have long answered this question both ways.

Here are Steve Thorngate's most-read posts of the year.

When I was in seminary I was taught this: Small churches are tough. You can’t beat them to death with a stick! ...