Latest Articles
But I thought dead-tree media was more accountable to the facts!
David Brooks says some silly stuff, but his June 14 column included a doozy even for him: "In Corinthians, Jesus tells the crowds..." The text was soon corrected to identify the letter as First Corinthians and its writer as Paul, though as of today it still has him telling crowds things. Whatever.
Michael Peppard finds the error ironic.
Lutherans and Catholics bury the hatchet for Reformation’s 500th
c. 2013 Religion News Service...
Sunday, June 30, 2013: 2 Kings 2:1-2,6-14; 1 Kings 19:15-16,19-21; Luke 9:51-62
“I have decided to follow Jesus.” These words begin a well-known hymn, but for me they will always be about Gordon and Mary Cosby, cofounders of the Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C....
Zombie Church
Closing a church is like eating the last slice of bread—somehow if you eat the last slice, you’re responsible for consuming it all (never mind that someone else ate the last 27 slices). A church can be declining for 40 years, but if a pastor comes in and starts to talk about closing a congregation, then she closed the church. Many people don’t want to be that pastor.
Exile, banjo and the Carolina Chocolate Drops
For most of my life now, I’ve been sucked ever deeper into various forms of Americana music....
Tuesday digest
New today from the Century: LaVonne Neff reviews Robert Lustig, Kathy Grieb on the lectionary, more.
Grace without conversion
Our congregation helped build a parish school in the West Bank. In return, Palestinian Christians stretched our understanding of the gospel.
Pastor in Oklahoma pursues suit against ‘pagan’ license plate
A Methodist pastor of a suburban Oklahoma City church is suing the state, claiming its license plate image of a Native American shooting an arrow into the sky violates his religious liberty....
For the fun of it
Last Tuesday night, I held the second of a short series of Lectio Divina meetings at church. I pulled the chairs into a circle, put the small candle out and prepared for whoever might show up....
Monday digest
New today from the Century: Craig Barnes on grace without conversion, Lou Carlozo reviews Kris Kristofferson, more.
Breath of silence
When the angel of the Lord told Elijah to go to Mount Horeb, Elijah knew he would encounter God. After all, Horeb was where God spoke to Moses with fire and to Israel with a storm. But for Elijah, God didn’t show up as expected.
Feeling Mortal, by Kris Kristofferson
It’s easy to write Kris Kristofferson off as another country songwriter trawling the shallows of whiskey, diesels and cornpone imagery. But that’s a myopic read of the Rhodes scholar, William Blake devotee, Golden Gloves boxer and helicopter pilot.
City plans to bury bodies in Gosnell case
Despite repeated requests from religious leaders and antiabortion activists, city officials in Philadelphia plan to cremate and bury the 47 bodies recovered from the office of abortion provide...
Other people saying things
"Extraction companies are buying up the rights to drill on private property with unprecedented speed. At stake are geysers of money. And in the thousands of cases in which the landowner is of the Amish faith, their business partner would never dream of taking them to court should things go awry."
What does evangelism look like?
Almost every Sunday after church, I stop at the grocery store....
Landless in North Dakota
When I went to Williston, North Dakota to report for the Century on churches in the oil boom, I had d...