Latest Articles
Catholic Crystal Cathedral: Great deal or odd choice?
Even by the depressed metrics of Southern California's real estate market, the Catholic Diocese of Orange negotiated a sweet deal when it purchased the iconic Crystal Cathedral, the longtime pulpit...
Erasing the mainline
Anytime you say something is new while also ignoring something old, it begs the question of what labels you use and how slippery their definitions are.
Young clergy crisis part two
As we wander through this desert, where’s the milk and honey? What is God calling us to do, and who is God calling us to be?
Sunday, December 25, 2011: Titus 2:11–14
I was visiting the traditional site of Good Friday and Easter: the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, an imposing, exotic, heterogeneous amalgam of interconnected buildings in the Old City of Jerusalem....
A this-worldly story
The colonial Puritans did a lot of good things, but banning Christmas was not one of their better ideas.
God's persistence
The annunciation is analogous in my mind to the story of God's invitation to Abram to leave Ur and head to Canaan. Both stories have a bare, binary feel to them. These are hinge moments in the unfolding of God and God's mission with and for the world. Abram, yes or no? Mary, yes or no?
Perspectives on the young clergy crisis
More than half of our small congregations cannot afford a full-time pastor, and many
associate pastor positions were cut during the recent economic downturn.
These are churches where
seminary graduates would normally be heading, so what are the
congregations doing instead?
Times of abundance: Terra Brockman on food and feasting
"We often have the idea of the feast appearing magically from the kitchen without labor. But the participatory aspect is the most important part of the feast."
Religious groups in Scotland overwhelmingly disapprove of gay marriage
Edinburgh, Scotland, December 9 (ENInews)--Although a recent survey showed 62 percent of Scots favor gay marriage, the country's main religious denominations overwhelmingly disapprove of it--though...
Atheists distrusted as much as rapists
c. 2011 Religion News Service
(RNS) A new study finds that atheists are among society's most distrusted group, comparable even to rapists in certain circumstances.
...
Task force completes study of SBC name change
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) – A task force appointed to study a possible
name change for the Southern Baptist Convention has completed its work...
Mormon PR blunts Jews’ unease with Romney
Two groups that opposed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential run were evangelical Protestants and Jews....
Alan Geyer, former Century editor, dies
Alan F. Geyer, 80, a widely published Christian ethicist and ecumenical leader and a former editor of the Christian Century, died November 28....
Are Iowa's conservative evangelicals irrelevant?
There's a sort of dualism that comes up when political commentators talk about conservative evangelicals: either they're powerful and unflappable advocates for the couple of causes we've always associated with them, or they don't really exist as a voting bloc at all.
Our most dangerous prayer
If you’ve spent much time on this blog, you’ll know that I think
rather highly of the collects (the prayers appointed for each Sunday) as...