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El Salvador Catholic Church supports a gang truce rejected by government
(The Christian Science Monitor) El Salvador's Catholic Church has been openly engaging in talks with gang members, raising hopes that ...
Scientists and seminarians: Theologian Lea Schweitz
"Students don't have time for electives. Rather than change the curriculum, we embedded a discussion of religion and science in the classes they already take."
Transformed
I love a good mountaintop experience. It’s a moment when everything changes. Insight flares up in the mind, illuminating the moment, the experience, the problem in a whole new way. You’re never quite the same again.
One such moment for me happened in prayer when I was on a three-day silent retreat.
Tribes and tribal gods
It's peculiar, of late, the degree to which the idea of tribalism has been surfacing in the world....
Contesting Catholicity, by Curtis W. Freeman
Curtis Freeman's book addresses primarily Baptists, but his concern matters to all Christians who live in denominational separatism but are summoned to embrace the richness of catholic faith.
Raise the gas tax
Imagine a tax increase that makes sense to liberals and conservatives, the Chamber of Commerce and unions, truckers and environmentalists.
A small, important thing
I had a funeral recently, a small funeral in our chapel for a retired teacher from our community. She had just a few, particular requests for her funeral: that we would read Ecclesiastes 3:1-13, that we would sing "Beautiful Savior," and that a woman from our congregation would sing.
She did not designate a particular song; she just wanted this woman to sing, an alto from our church's choir.
Vaccines and other collective action problems
It’s pretty clear that vaccination views don’t break down on partisan lines. Elizabeth Stoker Breunig is no doubt right that good old American individualism motivates many people’s refusal to take major risks to other people as seriously as minor risks to themselves. But not all of them. (It’s hard to generalize about anti-vaxxers.) And individualism itself of course exists across much of the political spectrum.
Nor is support for specifically mandatory vaccines found mostly just among us liberals, with our comparative comfort with statism. And some of the best things I’ve read on this have been by right-leaning commentators.
Why the UK has voted to allow "three-parent babies"
Britain's House of Commons voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to legalize the creation of so-called "three-parent babies." Though advocates of the move say it will help prevent a debilitating and often lethal condition, many warn that the procedure, though well-intentioned, opens the door to ethical and safety questions that have yet to be sufficiently grappled with.
In God’s Hands, by Desmond Tutu
Nelson Mandela said that “Desmond Tutu’s voice will always be the voice of the voiceless.” Tutu speaks with such moral clarity and generosity of spirit because he also speaks for a capacious God wh...
South Sudan peace unclear as talks leave out clergy, other key stakeholders
While the parties in conflict in South Sudan signed a recent peace agreement, it did not include key stakeholders—faith groups among them—making long-term hopes for peace uncertain....
Breakaway Episcopalians in South Carolina win major court case
The Episcopal Church lost a major court battle on February 3 when a South Carolina judge ruled that the Diocese of South Carolina legally seceded from the denomination and can retain control of $50...
The story we share: Toward a unifying campus vision
How can a Christian college build community amid diversity? Some tend toward relativism, others toward fundamentalism. SPU seeks a third way.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015 | Ash Wednesday: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
As we contemplate mortality and finitude, I wonder if we could treasure washing the dishes.
Sound theology
Over the last few weeks, I have been mulling over an interesting passage from Marilynne Robinson’s fine novel, Lila. The Reverend John Ames, an elderly Midwestern Methodist preacher is in conversation with his much-younger new wife, Lila, who has come to find rest, shelter, and love after a brutally hard life full of abuse and neglect. The conversation is about hell and the final judgment. Lila knows little of theology and metaphysics, but she has questions. Hard questions. How, she wonders, could the many people she has known who struggled and suffered so terribly on earth be made to suffer further in eternity because they didn’t become Christians? Who could believe this?
I get vaccines not because I’m certain they’re 100% harmless. I get them so other people won’t die.
Medicine always involves trade-offs. With vaccines, we’re not just weighing them for ourselves.
For crying out loud, raise the gas tax
Conservative economist Greg Mankiw has pushed the idea before: raise the gas tax, and offset this by reducing payroll taxes. So has conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, many times. He did it again last month.