Latest Articles
Who pledges how much? Why pastors should know
I believe that my leadership has been most effective when I know who's giving what to the church.
Jesus or God?
I had a conversation with someone the other day who acknowledged that, in her prayer life, she has always felt close to Jesus but has always "had a hard time with God." In those sorts of conversati...
Good news without simple truth
The Gospel of John uses the word "truth" more than any other book in the Bible and way more than the other Gospels combined. Not only that, but many of the most-quoted verses in John, the ones that have shaped Christian discourse over the centuries, have been concerned with the question of truth.
Here at Last Is Love: Selected Poems of Dustan Thompson, edited by Gregory Wolfe
Thompson suddenly disappeared from the literary scene in the early 1950s, when he moved to a small town on the east coast of England with his partner, Philip Trower....
A shower of nouns
My Italian is rusty. When I go to church in Rome and try to follow along, I'm reminded of Woolf's "incessant shower of innumerable atoms."
René Girard, scholar of religion and violence, dies at 91
René Girard, a French scholar best known for his work on desire, violence, and religion, died November 4 at age 91....
Fear and faith mingle after attacks in Paris and Beirut
The Sunday after the worst terrorist attacks in European history left at least 129 dead and 352 wounded in Paris, people packed into churches that are normally empty, lit candles at the sites of th...
Chiune Sugihara, diplomat who saved WWII refugees, remembered with exhibit, film
Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who saved thousands of Jewish refugees during World War II, is finally getting his due....
Michael Curry installed as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church
Declaring that “God has work for us to do,” Bishop Michael Curry was installed as presiding bishop of the 2.5 million-member Episcopal Church November 1 at the Washington National Cathedral....
Let's not help ISIS create chaos
As Rusty Foster would say, the takes are in. Everyone’s got something to say about global terrorism, ISIS, and refugees, and some of it is even worth reading.
If you’re only going to read one longer piece, I recommend this one by Scott Atran and Nafees Hamid.
The tragedy of the Syrian Samaritan
There was once a governor who was traveling and was beset by terrorists on the road. They bombed his motorcade and left him for dead on the roadside....
Culture and the Death of God, by Terry Eagleton
In Terry Eagleton's compelling narrative, three plotlines run concurrently: a parade of ideas from the Enlightenment to the present, a sustained argument about the role of culture, and a burlesque apologetic for Christianity.
In Calais migrant camp, mood turns somber in aftermath of Paris attacks
(The Christian Science Monitor) Wind whips the plastic tarps and tents that hold together the livelihoods of some 6,000 people living ...
In Myanmar election, anti-Muslim campaign loses in free, fair vote
(The Christian Science Monitor) Yin Yin Moe can still remember the fear she felt when a group of men began rioting in her neighborhood...
Were you lonely when you were a freshman?
There I am in the bottom bunk of my small room in the old hall, with my roommate snoring above me, the roommate I hardly saw and hardly knew.
When MLK responded to an "all lives matter" argument
Fifty-two years ago, eight white clergy penned their version of “all lives matter.” These white men of God questioned the efficacy of the civil rights movement in their hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. They wrote that "honest convictions in racial matters could properly be pursued in the courts.”
How many candles?
Sunday morning at the beginning of worship, I lit our peace lamp and then I lit four white candles: for Paris, Beirut, Aleppo, and Baghdad....
The Paradox of Liberation, by Michael Walzer
Michael Walzer addresses a surprising question: the interplay between social revolutions and reactive counterrevolutions.