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c. 2012 Religion News Service (RNS) In recent days, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum has criticized President Obama for having a "phony theology" not based on the Bible,...

c. 2012 Religion News Service (RNS) A task force is recommending that the Southern Baptist Convention maintain its official name but give members of the nation's largest...

Jerry Pattengale's cell phone won't stop ringing as he leads a secretive group of college administrators on a tour of a majestic...

A comment on my recent rush-hour-communion post mentioned the Episcopal Church's recent practice of Ashes to Go, a form of "liturgical evangelism" that has brought congregations out into streets, bus stations, train stations and subway stations to dispense ashes on Ash Wednesday. When I started to read about Ashes to Go, I had many of the same questions that I brought to early-morning communion. At first I thought, ashes to go? Whatever happened to liturgy and community? Aren't we just feeding into our culture's unwillingness to stop for anything at anytime? Can ashes really be offered like a fast food item at a take out window? But once again, in the midst of these restless and protesting thoughts, another reality has stepped in.

The new Century editorial offers that if the Republicans nominate Rick Santorum for president, his regular rhetoric about poverty might challenge President Obama to engage him on it--giving voters a chance to hear two different analyses of the problem instead of, you know, not hearing about it all. Somewhat more quixotically, I've found myself wondering whether there's an opportunity as well in Santorum's recent claim that environmentalism amounts to a "phony theology." Stephen Prothero's reaction is to challenge Santorum's desire to draw who's-a-real-Christian lines; Rachel Tabachnick's is to trace the "phony theology" line to the influence of the Cornwall Alliance. Good points both, but what interests me here is that Santorum's comments point to one of the basic theological questions for Christian eco-engagement: Is the emphasis on human membership in the wider creation or on human responsibility for it?

New today (and yesterday) from the Century: ashes for wanderers, Santorum and poverty, more.

If Rick Santorum wins the nomination, this could have at least one positive outcome: a general election campaign in which the candidates actually talk about poverty.

For some Christians the most important characteristic of God is God's "unchangeableness," God the same--yesterday, today and forever. For myself, I value those instances in which God changes God's mind, "repents," we might even say, of past behavior.

I’ll post on the lessons for Lent 1 for the rest of this week, but today my thoughts are focused on what to preach for Ash Wednesday in a parish I don’t know very well....

David Fincher's film of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo should please fans of Stieg Larsson's Millen­nium Trilogy....

ENInews--In Tripoli, fireworks were ignited, guns fired in the air and chants sounded on 17 February in celebrations marking the first...

c. 2012 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY (RNS) It isn't anywhere on the official agenda, but as Roman...

c. 2012 Religion News Service BERKELEY, Calif. (RNS) When Rebecca Hensler's infant son died in 2009, she received numerous condolences from friends, colleagues and even total...

c. 2012 Religion News Service TRENTON, N.J. (RNS) Even as Gov. Chris Christie's threat of a "swift" veto...

For the fourth year in a row, President Obama is proposing lower tax deductions for the wealthy on donations to churches and other nonprofit...

When megachurch pastor Tyrone Gordon announced January 22 that he was resigning in mid-February from St....

c. 2012 Religion News Service (RNS) FBI officials say they are willing to consider a proposal from a...

c. 2012 Religion News Service FAIRHOPE, Ala. (RNS) For the Rev. Jerry Henry, pastor of First Baptist Church of Fairhope, being Southern Baptist is a defining aspect of life....

c. 2012 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) Exhibit A in the fight over President Obama's mandate for...

I worry about avian flu. I worry that my identity is being stolen right this second. I check four times to make sure I turned the stove off. It's breathless, compulsive behavior.