Latest Articles
Church as problem and solution
Diana Butler Bass's new book is warm and winsome. But it lacks the particularizing power of her earlier work's grounding in stories about specific communities and people.
Acquainted with grief: The church’s way with death
Regular churchgoing does not make you a friend of death. But if you sit in the pews long enough, you cannot help getting acquainted.
German bishop will head Vatican’s doctrine office
Pope Benedict XVI has tapped a fellow German to lead the Vatican doctrinal office he headed for 24 years before being elected to the papacy....
Sunday, July 15, 2012: Mark 6:14-29
When my son was about five years old (he’s currently a very old seven) we spent an afternoon with a group of friends....
Selective memory
The fourth of July joins Memorial Day and Veterans day as the three times a year I feel out of step with the rest of American culture....
Moving, sin and other stuff
The moving van arrived at the church manse on Saturday morning....
Tuesday digest
New today from the Century: Selective memory on the fourth, the church's way with death, more.
Culture changers: David Hollinger on what the mainline achieved
"Ecumenical leaders of the 1960s took a series of risks," says historian David Hollinger, "asking their constituency to follow them in directions that many resisted."
Mormons have complex relationship with America
Whenever Americans celebrate flag-waving holidays, some Mormons may outdo their neighbors in fireworks and fanfare to express their outsized patriotism....
Senseless gospel
Once I finished working with this week’s gospel text, I went back into my files to see how many times I’ve managed to preach on it in my seven circuits through the lectionary. I found that I’ve missed it more often than not—no surprise there, as it falls at a convenient time of year for that. And when I have preached on it, the sermon has always been on one half of the text or the other—either on the scene in the Nazareth synagogue or on the sending of the disciples. I have never written a sermon that dealt with both stories.
Two more fun health-care reform links
The first is wonky fun; the second is just the regular kind.
Monday digest
New today from the Century: What the mainline achieved, how to read the Qur'an, more.
How to Read the Qur’an, by Carl W. Ernst
In the decade since 9/11, it seems as though every trade publisher and university press has brought forth a guide to the Qur’an for the perplexed. Carl Ernst eschews the usual method for books of this sort.
Leontine T.C. Kelly, pioneering African-American woman bishop, dies at 92
c. 2012 Religion News Service (RNS) Retired United Methodist Bishop Leontine T.C....
Why would Jews vandalize a Holocaust memorial?
c. 2012 Religion News Service (RNS) The news that Israel's memorial to Holocaust victims had been grafittied in early June with bitterly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements was shocking. ...