Latest Articles

The dirty river in Jesus' neighborhood and the one in mine

(The Christian Science Monitor) U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Iraq have allowed the Iraqi Army, Kurdish peshmerga fighters, and their alli...

(The Christian Science Monitor) The thousands of anti-Islamist protesters who’ve been gathering in Dresden each Monday—as they did yesterday ...

c. 2014 Religion News Service...

The killing of 134 children in a Peshawar school renewed concerns about Pakistan’s unfinished agenda of uprooting militancy and intolerance....

Like Sarah Koenig, I want to know if we can believe Adnan Syed. But I only know Syed through Koenig’s accounts of him in Serial.

The Magi's alien exoticism is an intrinsic part of Matthew's story.

Last year, humanities professor Stanley Fish wrote a piece about selling his books. The books that had nourished his academic soul for half a century were wheeled unceremoniously out of his home. The ostensible reason for this sale was downsizing—Fish was moving from a house to an apartment. But the real reason was that he was approaching the end of his scholarly career, and the exit of his library was a symbol of a phase of his life coming to a close.

Christmas is more complicated now, with its layers of meaning. Joy can no longer be wrapped up with a tidy bow. But, for me, this year, since I cannot have the world as it ought to be, I’m determined to find beauty in the yearning.

We put up our tree last week, and it's beautiful. It's fake and petite and 90 percent of the ornaments are at the bottom, reflecting the height of my children (its chief decorators)....

I was delighted to see Annie remade with an African American girl in the title role. But the new version doesn't do justice to the original's progressive vision.

c. 2014 Religion News Service...

(The Christian Science Monitor) The 26-year-old’s tone was calm as he recounted showing up at a local mosque here last month with dozens of o...

Everyone is ready to bow a knee at the mention of Bonhoeffer’s name. Precious few of us have even heard of Ralph Hamburger.

The story goes that God got a body. I’ve often pondered the relationship between incarnation and pain.

By this time of the year most of us have inundated by Christmas stuff. Shopping, cards, decorations. I see these houses with so many lights and do-dads that you can hardly get in the front door. I don’t think even Santa will be able to navigate through all those lights. Christmas is not presents nor cakes nor chestnuts roasting on an open fire or even family members coming from all over. Christmas is not even church services where we all go to enormous lengths to say "ta-da" to this holy time. I love all these things, but they aren’t the real Christmas. Christmas is mystery at its heart. 

In my lectionary column on Luke 2:1-4, I focus on the theme of hope. Whenever I think about hope, I remember the story of Rabbi Hugo Gryn. He was the senior rabbi at the West London Synagogue when he died almost ten years ago.

I don’t know what a perfect first-century family looked like, but I’m certain that Joseph and Mary didn’t qualify.

Christ came to bring God’s kingdom to bear on earth. As people who follow the risen Christ, we cannot faithfully live into his kingdom when we are silent about those who are marginalized in our midst. Our leaders need to curate conversations about race and reconciliation. As people of God we must extend ourselves in risky ways to begin to break down the “other-ness” that exists between races in the larger body of Christ.

I was visiting a 90-something-year-old who had just asked how things were going. I admitted I had too much on my plate and felt overwhelmed by it at that moment. She said, “I can’t remember the last time I was overwhelmed.” I was annoyed and ungenerous in my heart.