Latest Articles
Why Place Matters, edited by Wilfred M. McClay and Ted V. McAllister
Gertrude Stein famously said of Oakland, California, that “there is no there there.” Contrary to this being a putdown of her home city, she meant that because the house she grew up in was torn down...
Churches in Niger and other former French colonies torched amid anger over Charlie Hebdo cartoons
c. 2015 Religion News Service...
Influential writer on theological education dies at 85
William Edward Farley, 85, a theologian and influential writer on theological education, died December 27 at his home in Brentwood, Tennessee. He had congestive heart failure....
Kublai’s clan
With Marco Polo, Netflix reaches for a global audience. Unfortunately, it casts the epic drama through one European’s eyes.
Reading the Parable of the Great Banquet in prison
"Why you even invite us to any of this," asked Richard, "if you’re just gonna humiliate us and throw us out?"
The beauty of bodies
It’s true. God doesn’t have anything to do with winning a football game.
On Sunday, Russell Wilson, quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks, became the latest professional athlete to draw the ire of progressive Christians for expressing gratitude to God for winning a football game.
Obama's odd pivot to Hope & Change 2.0
I watched State of the Union on ABC last night....
Great Society, great awakening
President Barack Obama’s State of the Union proposed to enlarge the American promise of prosperity by introducing a new tax structure for the very wealthy, tax credits for families outside of the wealthy stratum, increased access to retirement plans for more American workers, and a plan to subsidize community college tuition. While there will be resistance to the president’s proposals, the impulse behind them is an appeal to an idealized form of decency that Lyndon B. Johnson believed would make his idea of a Great Society an American reality.
Fifty years ago this month, Johnson introduced his vision to Congress.
Neo-Anabaptist myths and Mennonite reality on the problem of white homogeneity in Anabaptist communities
Mennonites for example are actually 20 percent nonwhite in North America, and mostly non-white when considered from a global perspective. They are not the Mennonite Church you imagine in your head.
U.S. churchgoers still sit in segregated pews, and most are OK with that
c. 2015 Religion News Service...
Muslims in Europe: the misperceptions, and the facts
(The Christian Science Monitor) The Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris and growing support for a weekly anti-Islamization march in D...
Sunday, February 1, 2015: Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Idolatry seems like such an easy thing to avoid.
Duke reverses stance on Muslim prayer
The Muslim call to prayer was broadcast from a small black loudspeaker perched on the steps of the Duke Chapel on Friday, January 16, as hundreds of students, mostly non-Muslim, gathered in support...
Standing with Ahmed
We don’t have to choose between solidarity with victims of violence and with religious minorities. But the latter may be more challenging work.
What are we worshiping?
A church not too far from where I live and work has closed. Its last worship service was held at the end of December. Everyone worried that the large, stately building in the middle of town would be left to languish, perhaps even torn down. But, then, rescuers showed up, purchasing the building with the intent of repurposing it, for weddings and events.
The few members that were left are happy that the church “will be preserved,” according to the local newspaper. But, I’m wondering: What’s being preserved, exactly?
How we mourn
The new year is only a few weeks old. Like most people I have been reflecting on the past year, wondering where the time went. But even more, I have been wondering what the world has come to.
Ralph Abernathy: Martin Luther King Jr.’s overlooked ‘civil rights twin’
c. 2015 Religion News Service...
Police chief to black churches: ‘We can’t do this without you guys’
c. 2015 Religion News Service...
Black churches offer scholarships to students at Michael Brown’s alma mater
c. 2014 St. Louis Post-Dispatch...