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Spreading lies
It may seem hyperbolic for the Southern Poverty Law
Center to add large and highly visible advocacy organizations to the list of hate groups it monitors. But not all hate comes from the fringe.
Baptists debate social drinking
CARROLLTON, Ga. (ABP) -- Two decades after declaring victory in the war
over biblical inerrancy, Southern Baptists are battling about booze.
...
Sunday, January 9, 2011: Matthew 3:13-17
My college motto is vox clamantis in deserto, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness....
My "criminal mindset"
A friend at
church asked me to help with her son's project for a college psychology class.
He was studying the criminal mindset of women inmates and needed a control...
A review of Unbroken
Hillenbrand calls the life of Louie Zamperini, the subject of her new biography, "incomprehensibly dramatic." A record-breaking high school track star, competitor at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (where...
Disobedience: Direct action on global warming
Global warming is dry science, an entirely rational question that should be addressed by experts working on our behalf and with our thanks. But it's not happening.
Muscle memory
For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page, which includes Dragseth's curr...
Russian heart
The opening lines of Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground (1864) can hardly be described as inviting: "I am a sick man. . . . I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man....
Geneva-based ENInews suspends operation
Faced with a 50 percent cut in funding in 2011 from the World Council of Churches, the Geneva-based ENInews suspended its five-days-a-week news service on December 21....
Catholic school enrollment moves steadily downward
Not much keeps New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond up at night. But one thing does make him toss and turn....
Abortion rift divides bishops, Catholic hospitals
An umbrella group of Catholic hospitals is backing a Phoenix hospital
that was stripped of its church affiliation, thereby setting the stage...
No messenger or angel
There's an interesting variation between the New International and New Revised Standard versions of Isaiah 63:9. The NIV expresses quite beautifully that "the angel of his presence saved them," while the NRSV contends that "it was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them." Both convey Isaiah's revelation that God does not plan to redeem creation by force, by tinkering with free will, or from afar. God redeems creation by becoming one of us, by drawing near to us and being with us.
Mary's grammar
The final exam in my theology class surprised me. Instead of complex essay questions, there was one simple question: defend the grammar of the Magnificat....
A review of The History of White People
Have you ever wondered why there are so many terms for white people? Caucasian is often the designation on the census form....
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The third Narnia film features a new director, Michael Apted. The good news is that Dawn Treader is a worthy successor to Andrew Adamson's splendiferous earlier entries.
Sunday, January 2, 2010: Jeremiah 31:7-14; Psalm 147:12-20; Ephesians 1:3-14; John 1:(1-9), 10-18
On the first morning of every new year, I take a three-foot-long saw with three-inch teeth, walk out onto Lake Michigan at 20 below in my sandals and swimsuit, hack a hole in the two-foot-thick ice...
Poll finds family, not Jesus' birth, at heart of Christmas
(RNS) While nearly all Americans celebrate Christmas, most focus
more on family than religious traditions, a new survey shows.
...
Does atheist jeopardize church-state separation?
He is the most famous—and perhaps the loneliest—atheist in the
country. For 14 years, Michael Newdow, an emergency room doctor and an...
Vatican says teaching on condoms unchanged
According to the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI's comments published
late last year about condoms do not mark a change in "Catholic moral...