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How will the ELCA hold gay pastors who aren't married accountable to the standard of monogamy and lifelong commitment? Do same-sex couples have to prove what is taken for granted with married heterosexual couples?

Attacks on Israelis inside or emanating from the West Bank are now almost nonexistent. Peace efforts are focused instead on settlements—because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a conflict over land.

Cape Town, October 18 (ENI)--The head of the World Council of Churches has reached out to a global gathering of Evangelicals saying Christians of different traditions need to learn from each other ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (RNS) Harvard University scholar Robert Putnam has earned a reputation as an expert on the threads that hold America's...

We're all perpetually longing for love. Fortunate are those who realize early that another human being can't meet this unrequitable need. Even more fortunate are men and women of prayer who realize that peace comes by embracing the longing itself.

Words of judgment are difficult to hear. Actually, I have no trouble hearing how they apply to others. And when the preacher gives a logical explanation of how the law applies to me, I understand it and nod my head in agreement. But it often makes little connection with my heart and even less with the way I live.

I prayed with a young man today for healing - specifically healing from the bondage of evil spirits - which doesn't happen a lot in my ministry....

An itemized income-tax receipt would say, “So you want to talk about reducing government spending? Talk about these things first.” Which would be a far more focused conversation than we’re having now.

We're all perpetually longing for love. Fortunate are those who realize early that another human being can't meet this unrequitable need. Even more fortunate are men and women of prayer who realize that peace comes by embracing the longing itself.

Franzen has turned his considerable novelistic talents to a kind of inquisito­rial examination of the American ideal of freedom. He shows how freedom is negatively construed—focused on what we are free from and not on what freedom might be for, what worthy ends it might be used to pursue.

Based on the award-winning 2005 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, who also penned The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go is that rare story that doesn't rely on a revelatory plot twist to make its...

Our fall books issue includes reviews by Robert Westbrook, Susan R. Garrett, Stanley Hauerwas, Randall Balmer, Anne Blue Wills, Valerie Weaver-Zercher, Shirley Showalter, Amy Frykholm and Brian Doyle.

Generalizing about a religion is a dangerous thing. A generalization that had seemed safe was that Buddhism is a peaceful religion. It's all about compassion, isn't...

Before his untimely death in Novem­ber of 2008, William Placher was a celebrated teacher who exercised his gifts of exceptional insight and clarity of expression not only in the classroom but also in his many books, book chapters and edited works. One project in progress at the time of his passing was a biblical commentary series authored by well-respected theologians and published by Westminster John Knox.

(RNS) Oklahoma state Rep. Rex Duncan expects his "Save Our State" referendum to keep Islamic law out of state courts to pass easily on...