Latest Articles
Monday digest
New today from the Century: the open-table debate, learning from the religious right, more.
Del Rio, Texas, Revisited, Radney Foster
Radney Foster pulls off a neat trick: a live re-recording of his first solo album from 20 years ago, Del Rio, Texas, 1959....
Report: White Christian voters no longer hold keys to the White House
The road to the White House is no longer white and Christian....
Atheists sue IRS for failure to monitor church politicking
A First Amendment watchdog group is suing the Internal Revenue Service for failing to challenge the tax-exempt status of churches whose pastors engage in partisan politicking from the pulpit....
Episcopal leader says S.C. diocese can't secede
Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said Thursday (Nov....
Disciples like me
The more I learned about the Disciples, the more I felt this was the church for me. Then, inevitably, I found the skeleton in the Disciples’ closet.
Links? Links.
Here are some things I read recently but didn't get around to blogging about: Doctors Without Borders comes to Queens, communion-denial jumps the shark, more.
Friday digest
New today from the Century: Zombies and the resurrection of the body, remembering the Disciples at Jonestown, more.
The zombie war
Whatever else zombies are, they're a parody of Christian hope for the resurrection of the body.
Silence and Other Surprising Invitations of Advent, by Enuma Okoro
Okoro deflects the usual attention from Gabriel, Mary and Joseph during Advent and puts the spotlight on Zechariah and Elizabeth instead....
Heart, by Audrey Assad
Audrey Assad’s robust voice, which recalls Paula Cole, can climb from gentle to gutsy in the same song—as it does on the opener, “Blessed Are the Ones.” Heart is a sunny pop affair, and As...
The bovine offices: Meditation and milking
Sister Carol Bernice told me once that when she milks the cows she whispers "Yah-weh" as she alternates hands milking the teats.
Diana Butler Bass: Christianity After Religion
As we read about the rise of the spiritual but not religious, how do we respond? Do we think of it as a threat? A challenge? Or do we resonate with the category?
Thursday digest
New today from the Century: Meditation while milking a cow, John Lynch reviews Kenneth Serbin, more.
Lay Down, Lay Low, by the Steel Wheels
This Ann Arbor–based quartet blends a wide variety of Americana styles. The title track is inspired by a friend who contemplated jumping from a high bridge—but turned back.
New Worlds, by John Lynch
With this synthesis of the 500-plus-year history of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America, John Lynch has furnished an important and intricate piece of the puzzle of the story of global Christ...
India’s original Christians
For over a thousand years, Christian communities flourished in India. Their first real identity crisis? The arrival of European Catholics.
Pope Benedict XVI faces uphill challenge in trying to resurrect Latin
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Reviving a long-dead language might sound like a tall order for a church that's already weakened by widespread secularization and the fallout from decades of a painful child abus...
St. Dorothy Day? Controversial, yes, but bishops push for canonization
BALTIMORE (RNS) The Catholic bishops gathered here for their annual meeting couldn't agree on a statement on the economy on Tuesday morning (Nov....