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In her most recent book, Blessed Are the Consumers, Sallie McFague focuses on kenosis as the key element in shaping a Christian alternative to the pervasive religion of consumerism. McFague says that consumerism consists of those cultural patterns and practices by which people “find meaning and fulfillment through the consumption of goods and services.” We may rightly identify consumerism as a religion.

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I see the way you grip each other’s hands when you notice us. I see the way you try not to cry while you watch our kids. 

This is a book about deep, protracted, unrelenting sadness, and it knows it.

What are the best books for ministry written in the 21st century? We asked seven pastors to pick their favorites. — Ed....

It is a subtle shift that we make in our liturgy and preaching. But it’s an important one. We do terrible things and we must confess our action. But we are good. We are made in the image of God. And in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven people.

In all the commentary around Adrian Peterson and his son, one of the more interesting threads has been about the particular history of African American parenting and corporal punishment. Charles Barkley weighed in of course; so did Michael Eric Dyson. Jamelle Bouie pushes back against Dyson in this thoughtful post. But the most provocative thing I’ve seen is by Brittney Cooper.

One morning, with the requisite fog covering Berkeley, I turned to Last Night’s Fun, about Irish traditional music, for some solace and inspiration. I had a lot to do: e-mails to send, books to pack up in one office and take to another, reservations to make, recruitment kits to create, and a metric ton of introspection to accompany it all. Once again I am plagued by missing the mark. We have a long and uncomfortable relationship.

"My anecdotal gestalt impression is this SC shooting is actually a Road to Damascus moment for a nontrivial number of conservatives...

Racism in missions didn’t end with colonialism. Barber shows how it continues to persist, especially in urban missions. People of color in missions are often not given positions of authority....

Margaret Grubiak thinks elite university chapels have become white elephants. But some of them are cash cows—and all of them still speak.

c. 2014 Religion News Service...

(The Christian Science Monitor) A woman in a full niqab veil walks with a toddler to the children’s playground in Raqqa, Syria—an AK-47 slung...

A Christian pastor in Arizona, a Muslim prisoner in Arkansas, and an 11-year-old Jewish boy born in Jerusalem will present the Supreme Court with three chances in the next few months to rule on cas...

Cinema has long been a critical medium for exploring religious themes in mainstream culture. Today, filmmakers continue to find a distinctive religious voice.

In North Carolina, civil rights leaders are focused on the one political issue that undergirds all others: the right to vote.

The United Church of Christ’s investment arm is launching a fund this fall that is free of fossil fuel extraction and production companies—possibly the first such fund based in a Christian denomina...

The point is, I wonder if this might be a time to remember that God was present in the temple and the tabernacle. I love architecture. I love soaring structures and hope we can find uses for them. But I also realize that they have become a tremendous burden for many congregations to do the sort of love-your-neighbor work that they long to do. Are we moving into a moment when we need those tent pegs in order to be led where God wants us?

 Am I using my gifts and my body in a faithful manner, given my abilities? To be honest, one of the most encouraging things I had to hold on to was when I remembered the words of James Cone as he accounted for his own struggles back when he was in graduate school.

About a dozen years ago, I was back home visiting from my young-adult life in the city, sitting around drinking coffee with my mom and my sisters, when I suddenly heard my much-younger b...