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Leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church have said that recent decisions by two regional bodies to allow ordination of female pastors were “serious mistakes,” and women who are ordained won’t be...

An established interfaith group is in danger of disintegrating as major American Jewish groups and prominent mainline Protestant churches differ over U.S....

What makes kindness a distinctive mark of the new creation?

In politics, competence sometimes serves as a rhetorical proxy for intent. Politicians like to talk about how terrific they/their ideas are. They aren’t always as gabby about what they/those ideas aim to accomplish. Example: privatization. Some conservatives insist that private enterprise is simply more efficient--more competent--than the government. So why not let the private sector take over certain public functions? But even if we concede that business is categorically more efficient than government, there remains the question of what it's doing so efficiently.

By now, we are all familiar with what liberation theology and Catholic social teaching have called the Bible’s “preferential option for the poor.” But what about a biblical preferential option for the rebel?  In a new book by biblical scholar Yoram Hazony called The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture—which I learned about from Jonathan Yudelman’s review—the story of Cain and Abel receives a reading different from any I have heard.

New today from the Century: Christine Pohl on kindness, Steve Thorngate on Romney's fiscal intentions, more.

My real-time notes on the presidential debate last night, followed by some cleanup and linking this morning. I listened to much of it on the radio instead of watching. It's nice. You don't have to see the candidates' forced smiles and condescending smirks. See also my notes on the first debate and the VP debate.

I'm thinking about Psalm 33. It's a good one. It begins with music and ends with this reminder that princes and horses are not actually running the show. I know. I was surprised as well. Some days it might feel that way, mind you, but it's not really the way things are. I always want question that kind of logic...ontology again. If Congress reinstates the draft then they are running the show. There is this thing called "power" and some people have more than others in some contexts. How does an ontological theo-philosophical argument slow down Congress or what have you?

New today from the Century: Beth Felker Jones on Pinterest, Jon Sweeney reviews Michael Plekon, more.

The temptation of Pinterest is in the part of it that is trite, banal and predictable. But that's not all there is to the site's appeal.

Michael Plekon is a man of many talents: he is a sociologist, an anthropologist and an expert in Kierkegaard’s thought....

What does "middle class" mean if it somehow applies to most of the country? And if we are all middle class now, what are the implications?

c. 2012 Religion News Service...

c. 2012 Religion News Service...

c. 2012 Religion News Service...

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association removed language labeling Mormonism a cult from its website after the famed preacher met with Republican nominee Mitt Romney and pledged to help his presid...

Political leaders in the tiny Buddhist nation of Bhutan have announced a nearly six-month ban on all public religious activities ahead of the upcoming elections, citing the Himalayan nation’s const...

After slogging through 41 chapters of misery and god-awful suffering, Job’s world is suddenly put right again in just six verses.

At a reception to launch a new collection of Lucille Clifton’s poems (The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010), the editor of the volume, Kevin Young, described coming across a folder in Clifton’s archives at Emory University. The folder had been labeled “Unpublished Poems.” That label had been scratched out and replaced by something like, “Poems that really aren’t that good and should probably just be thrown away someday.” That label too had been scratched out and replaced with “Bad poems.”

About a week after my mother-in-law died, I went by her house to borrow her sieve....