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At the heart of evangelicals’ conflicted identity, Molly Worthen argues, is the “struggle to reconcile reason with revelation, heart with head, and private piety with the public square.”

The Harriet Beecher Stowe of Nancy Koester’s new biography is not the one with which most readers are familiar—the “little woman who made this big war,” as Abraham Lincoln reportedly said about the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

President Obama called for people of all faiths to deter gun violence and anti-Semitism one day after a gunman killed three people at Jewish centers in suburban Kansas City....

Eroding campaign finance rules gives wealthy donors more power. It may also generate cynicism and political disengagement.

When Jesus moves away from the table, strips down, and ties a towel around his waist (John 13:4), I don’t think he is thinking about how stinky James’s feet always are, or about the bunions that have been growing on Matthew’s foot as they made their way to Jerusalem. Rather, he is in the process of inviting the disciples into the most wonderful life imaginable—one in which love, intimacy, and humble service bring both deep delight and freedom from trivialities.

Smithsonian magazine has announced the finalists in its annual photo contest....

I return to this book more than almost any other because it reminds me why I’m a priest, what the church is, and how God is at work in places before I ever show up. Donovan shows me that what has become the ritual of worship is really a pattern of practices that are needed to remake community and shape society. 

I tried to talk myself out of selecting a young adult book published in 2012. How could John Green possibly be shelved alongside Tillich in the pastor’s study?

For Sharon Baker, theological consistency is essential, because “our perception of God influences how we behave.”

Mary Boys offers concrete proposals for how the story of Jesus’ crucifixion can be told faithfully in the presence of Jewish conversation partners.

In a culture that finds repentance unintelligible, impractical, or unnecessary, we are called to witness to its intelligibility, beauty, and importance.

Like it or not, Wikipedia is here and it will probably stay. Everybody from third grade history students to graduate level scholars use them. Even when Wiki pages cannot be cited, we still use them. We are forming history on that site. 

"Kathleen Sebelius is resigning because Obamacare has won."...

It's official: Stephen Colbert will take over David Let...

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A year and a half after unveiling a slip of papyrus that she dubbed “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” Harvard biblical scholar Karen King has released the results of long-delayed testing on the controv...

Our guests know that resurrection defies logic. That is why they come sidling through our doors—every one of them comes hoping for it.

After futile efforts to build homes for sale on its 126-acre campus amid prime real estate near San Francisco Bay, the Southern Baptist–affiliated Golden Gate Theological Seminary is selling its si...

In a recent issue of the Century, I interview Kent Haruf, whose novel Benediction has garnered a nomination for the newly minted Folio Prize in the United Kingdom and recent reviews in The Guardian (by Ursula Le Guin) and the Telegraph. Haruf has made a life out of fine and careful reading, as well as writing. I asked him for recommendations on five books that have helped him become more fully human.

Last week's Supreme Court decision in McCutcheon v. FEC, which lifted aggregate limits on how much political donors can give, was not the most clear-cut conservative victory ever. Elected Democrats are officially unhappy, but their fundraisers won't mind the extra cash. Yet the decision is clearly a setback for liberals—as distinct from Democratic party interests—and not just because other people don't tend to be rich people's top policy concern.