Latest Articles
When "religious freedom" means the opposite
Insisting that a government office answer to the law rather than to a given official’s religious beliefs isn’t de-prioritizing religious freedom in favor of something else. It is religious freedom.
Biblical truths and context
The Bible, or so some folks who think they've discovered something profound will tell you, disagrees with itself. "Your holy book doesn't add up," they say....
Facing visions of violence
My daughter and I drove up the driveway of the Mercy Junction Justice and Peace Center to pick up my husband, Brian, from work....
Repenting for our prisons
Imprisonment in this country is long on punishment and shamefully short on rehabilitation.
The ministry of interpretation
In the Talmud, there is a story of a group of rabbis arguing over the status of a particular clay oven. Is it clean or unclean? Rabbi Eliezer stands alone against the interpretation given by his fellow sages, and he begins to call upon nature to confirm him.
My daughters are not distracting
A friend of mine recently posed this question on Facebook: Junior high girls braiding each other’s hair in church: appropriate or not? Considering this friend has never been a junior-high girl nor parented a junior-high girl, the question seemed sincere and did not bother me.
What did bother me, however, was the frequency with which one particular word kept popping up in the comments: distracting.
Cancer and good news
Todd Billings weaves his struggle with a rare form of blood cancer together with probing biblical and theological reflection.
Did you hear the one about the pope?
c. 2015 Religion News Service
(RNS) “The California drought is so bad, people in Napa are asking the pope to change the wine into water.”...
Catholic to Catholic-ish: 45 percent in U.S. feel connected to the faith
c. 2015 Religion News Service
(RNS) Sam Clark wasn’t reared as a Catholic. He never converted, either....
Emanuel AME shooter will face death penalty
(The Christian Science Monitor) Charleston mayor Joseph P....
Israeli settler vigilantes see attacks as route to Jewish theocracy
(The Christian Science Monitor) Clinging to a barren hillside, the Baladim outpost was little more than a solitary trailer, a farming...
Illness as hermitage: How Parkinsons became my spiritual practice
One day, as I considered my routine of pills and naps and exercises, I saw that it is not unlike praying the hours.
Heart's desire
For months, at the urging of my spiritual director, I have been praying to find my heart’s desire, to find that thing (not a person—I have those) that inspires me, energizes me; my flow. But you pray for something long enough, and the prayer goes unanswered, and eventually you stop praying for the thing.
Two responses to my death penalty/LWOP article
I was trying to write a provocative article for a readership that includes many people who a) oppose the death penalty for faith-based reasons, and b) take for granted that replacing it with LWOP is a fairly straightforward good. But I should have done more to anticipate how others might see a one-sided article where I saw a narrowly focused one.
Between Magisterium and Marketplace, by Robert C. Saler
Robert Saler’s two main concerns are theological authorship and how we conceive of the church. The two have an unsettled relationship.
Could this Qur'an fragment be older than Muhammad?
(The Christian Science Monitor) Researchers from the University of Oxford have said that recently discovered fragments ...
Pope Francis stresses mercy amid culture clashes
(The Christian Science Monitor) Pope Francis asserted his global papal authority on Tuesday, authorizing Roman Catholic priests around...
Soil and soul: Our Protestant agrarian past
Christians didn’t baptize Aldo Leopold’s land ethic after the fact. They got there years before his work.
Faith and families, a doctor of ministry course
If you know me or have heard me speak, you’ve probably heard this story. I have told it hundreds of times. I grew up Southern Baptist and attended Moody Bible Institute....