Latest Articles

New today from the Century: The power of introverts, from vegetarianism to fasting, more.

Susan Cain contends that introverts are both misunderstood and underappreciated. She finds this infuriating.

When I met Jonah I noticed two things: he was wracked with overwhelming guilt and very much wanted to die, and he knew the Bible.

It was a Thursday morning, and I was preoccupied with writing this article and considering the words of John the Baptist from the passage in Luke 3....

It’s an odd year for my family. My parents, 88 and 89, have lived rich and full lives, and my husband, children and I have shared holidays large and small with them. But this year they are confined to rooms in a nursing home.

The son of a truck driver, I like highways and image of travel. Checking The New Interpreter’s Bible Dictionary's entry about roads and highways, I learned that a messila was a built-up road, intentionally constructed and improved, while a derekh (Num. 20:17, 19, Judg. 21:19) was a path was formed because of constant use and thus had become a road.

New today from the Century: Prison ministry, the holidays with aging elders, more.

It was a Thursday morning, and I was preoccupied with writing this article and considering the words of John the Baptist from the passage in Luke 3....

A special Christmas review of noteworthy books, music and film.

John the Baptist is an acquired taste, like roquefort. He’s complex. He is an amalgamation of unanswered questions: Is he a zealot acting out the Exodus as a kind of political comedy sketch? Is he the leader of a rival faith community, a serious threat to the fledgeling Jesus movement? Is he a kind of Enkidu figure—a fugitive of our collective consciousness from the epic Gilgamesh—who crawls out of the wilderness, learns our ways well enough and then attempts to wrestle and pin our society to the ground, only to be admired briefly and then destroyed? Whatever John is, he’s not easy to put on a cracker.

Here are some things I read recently but didn't get around to blogging about: the austerity crisis and the press corps' bias toward fairness, a new kind of milk truck, more.

Liberty Counsel and the American Family Associationhave posted their Tenth Annual “Naughty and Nice” list, encouraging Christians to shop at stores that wish them a Merry Christmas rather than a mere “Happy Holidays.” Am I the only one who remembers a time, not so long ago, when Christians thought that their goal should be to bring the Christian message to those who needed to hear it, and not merely to surround themselves with other Christians to exchange Christian greetings with one another? I didn’t think so.

A boy, the son of a zookeeper, grows up in picturesque Pondicherry, India. He is bright and inquisitive and unusually attuned to the world around him. He is, by place of birth, a Hindu, and a devout one. He discovers Christianity (“Thank you, Vishnu, for introducing me to Christ”), and then finds the religion of Allah, especially its profound witness to the practice of daily prayer, to be life-giving. His parents are perplexed.

New today from the Century: Jerome Baggett reviews Robert Wuthnow, Debra Dean Murphy on Life of Pi, more.

According to Robert Wuthnow, well-educated Americans have reconfigured their religious language in terms of reasonableness—and thus retained a place for the supernatural in everyday life.

Romantics Anonymous, directed by Jean-Pierre Améris. My son called me and said, “I’ve just found your next favorite movie....

My wife and I are about to leave for two weeks on the east coast, where we'll see old friends, meet new babies, work a little (her mostly) and hopefully relax a lot....

You are about to enjoy a Christmas pageant in your congregation. Congratulations, and be sure to plan accordingly.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) The former rector of the nation's largest Episcopal church has become a Roman Catholic....

Ask Kelley Taylor, a Southern Baptist college student, if she's opened the steamy pages of "Fifty Shades of Grey," and she has a ready response....