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I’m taking a class on the Gospel of Luke this semester, and one of my assignments is to engage in an ongoing spiritual practice related to that particular Gospel. So for the entire semester I am reading the Magnificat daily. It’s a passage that I’ve been drawn to in recent years, but it has been particularly illuminating to be dwelling on it during Lent this year, since it is typically confined to the Advent season. Somehow the triumphal language of the justice that God has already accomplished fits with the modern treatment of Advent as a celebratory season. But Lent is a season of penance, which puts an entirely different spin on the text.

So, the Blunt amendment got killed in the Senate. And good riddance: you wouldn't know it from the L.A. Times's writeup, but the measure was a good bit broader than a reversal of the Obama administration's contraception mandate (which itself would have been nothing to celebrate). From the amendment text (pdf): A health plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the essential health benefits package...on the basis that it declines to provide coverage of specific items or services because...providing coverage (or, in the case of a sponsor of a group health plan, paying for coverage) of such specific items or services is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan. In other words, essentially a line-item veto of whatever the boss is morally opposed to, based on church teaching or otherwise.

New today from the Century: docetic offertory prayers, Lillian Daniel reviews James Howell, more.

I knew my worst sermon was going to be terrible before I preached it. I want to hold myself to a higher standard, and James Howell's book offers the inspiration to get me there.

c. 2012 USA Today...

c. 2012 Religion News Service...

Is exaggerated violence in Passion plays merely a product of our baser natures? Or does the savagery actually have a proper place in the crucifixion's meaning?

Wellington, New Zealand (ENInews)--Christian leaders in New Zealand are decrying the widening gap between the lowest and highest income earners, in a country that has one of the highest rates of in...

c. 2012 Salt Lake Tribune...

Evangelist Franklin Graham has apologized to President Obama for questioning his Christian faith and said religion has "nothing to do"...

The number of mosques in America has jumped 74 percent since 2000, and the majority of them—56 percent— espouse a less-than-literal...

Like Jacob and Esau, my mother and my aunt met each other one day after 20 years of estrangement.

Recently I had a conversation with one of the young parents in my congregation.  We were having a far-reaching discussion that included Sunday School, next summer's Vacation Bible School Program, and the changing nature of our culture and church attendance.  When I offered the idea that "going to church" is not as culturally normal now as it was when I was growing up, she replied, "That's right!  I think we are the only ones who go to church among all of our friends."  She continued that she knew that her friends had a wide variety of opinions and emotions regarding faith, from some who clearly were not interested, to others who were more ambivalent.  I blurted out, "So, you're sort of like missionaries to your friends." I immediately regretted the statement.

So Bloomberg talked to some rich Wall Street types about dealing with the impact of reduced bonuses. All populist eye-rolling aside, I think this quote from Michael Sonnenfeldt--founder of Tiger 21, a "peer-to-peer learning group for high-net-worth investors"--actually makes some sense: Sonnenfeldt said [Tiger 21] members, most with a net worth of at least $10 million, have been forced to “re-examine lots of assumptions about how grand their life would be.” While they aren’t asking for sympathy, “at their level, in a different way but in the same way, the rug got pulled out,” said Sonnenfeldt, 56. “For many people of wealth, they’ve had a crushing setback as well.” Sure--you don't have to be destitute to experience the disappointment of unmet financial expectations.

New today from the Century: the long path to reconciliation, gory Passion plays, more.

Snow can be tiresome, even deadly, but it can also be a sign of holiness and of hope.

(ENInews)--Human rights advocates are hailing the decision by a U.S....

Geneva (ENInews)--The head of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on 27 February condemned as "deplorable" a recent spate of violence and killings in Afghanistan, sparked in rea...

"You're a preacher, I can tell," the woman said to me. "But not yet."

There's a popular saying in church-planting circles: it's easier to make babies than to raise the dead....