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In November, I had to vote by provisional ballot. Happens to a lot of people, often for no good reason. But if I had stayed closer to home instead of moving across the state line, along with making my parents happy I likely would have avoided this frustrating experience at the polls. Wisconsin doesn't need to use provisional ballots on anything like the level that Illinois does, because Wisconsin has same-day voter registration.

It requires only modest exaggeration to say that C....

New today from the Century: Lillian Daniel reviews Justin Lee, Randall Balmer on C. Everett Koop, more.

Justin Lee's book is more than charitable to his Southern Baptist origins. But his heart-wrenching stories speak for themselves.

The curmudgeonly old are notorious for “close-mindedness, complaining, fear of change, obsessing about comfort and security, boredom, denial, resentment, judgmentalism, hoarding, and cursing an inc...

When our congregation celebrates communion by intinction, the pastor invites members to “Come. Take off a large piece of bread. See how large and great God’s love is for you....

I recently spent a night on the streets of London. I had two companions, who wondered if I was checking up on them in some way.

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Taras Grescoe is a straphanger: he prefers and relies on public transportation for day-to-day travel....

This video on wealth inequality is awfully well done. It emphasizes the point that the gap between rich and poor in this country isn't just bigger than some liberal theorist might like it to be. It's a whole lot bigger than most Americans think it should be, and also bigger than they think it actually is.

New today from the Century: Sam Wells on a homelessness immersion experience, Debra Bendis on Taras Grescoe's book, more.

c. 2013 Religion News Service...

A specifically Christian understanding of marriage doesn't insist on procreation. It insists that marriage mirrors God's fidelity.

My youngest child hasn’t missed a church choir rehearsal in five years. But when the ten-year-old went too rehearsal one day recently, she was one of only two people to show up. It was a hard evening for the interim music director—it’s hard to be a resilient leader when your numbers are dwindling.

There is a wicked irony that as the United States marks the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement, the country’s highest court is edging closer to gutting one of the movement’s greatest victories. As Americans everywhere celebrate the marches, martyrs, and nonviolent courage of Civil Rights activists in Selma, Birmingham, Atlanta and elsewhere, the Supreme Court seems poised to rollback the Voting Rights Act of 1965, or at least, eviscerate key provisions that make it functional legislation.

New today from the Century: The editors on same-sex marriage, Brueggemann on Joerg Rieger and Kwok Pui-lan's book on Occupy, more.

It is easy to conclude that the Occupy movement was a flash in the pan, enacted by disgruntled people without a plan or staying power, a passing whim to be forgotten. This book insists otherwise.

We live in the reddest part of Texas, a very red state. So maybe we shouldn't have been surprised when our city stopped recycling glass.

I have friends who always count the days till spring training begins. Now that it’s underway, their thoughts are moving on to their teams’ post-season chances....

There’s a rough consensus that Steven Brill’s massive story on health-care prices is an ...