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So, I’ve finally read Rob Bell’s Love Wins and am working on a review. When I think about all the controversy surrounding the book, I wish more people had a chance to take a study seminar I took while studying at Regent College.

Douglas Alan Walrath's astute survey of American novels about clergy is essential reading for budding pastors—as well as for anybody who wants to understand why we American clergy are the way we are.

After Jesus shared his last supper with his friends, they sang a hymn together. There is every reason to believe it was the Hallel, Psalms 113 through 118. How have I missed this before?

One of the funny sidelights of owning a chiminea (and Facebooking about making fires in it on a frequent basis) is that I have kind of become the "Parish incinerator for holy objects." Things like slightly "off-smelling" chrism, leftover blessed palm fronds, or worn out corporals or altar linens seem to find their way into my chiminea to be burned. I think part of it is folks in my parish know I love to burn stuff, and they also know my fire-sitting spot is, at least to me, a holy space.

Subscribe to the Century editors' link blogging by feed. Solidarity in honor of Dr. King. How, and how not, to stimulate the economy.

The Vietnam War forced Protestant ethicists to consider Catholic teachings about war, and I learned much from Catholic colleagues. My outlook was also changed by ecumenical contacts of another kind.

Pundits have been praising Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House budget committee, for the courage displayed in his 2012 budget proposal. But their definition of "courage" must be different from mine.