Latest Articles
Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship
Imagine that after you read scripture and proclaim, “This is the Word of the Lord,” someone greets you with the question, “Were you really identifying your words w...
Faith like Sarah’s
Scholars say the title "To the Hebrews" is not a part of the original manuscript: the author of this early Christian letter—a written sermon, really—doesn’t waste time on salutations....
Is inclusive language on the decline?
The National Council of Churches’ Justice for Women Working Group is
initiating a conversation about inclusive language in worship and...
The undead religious right
The religious right, as you may have heard, is dead. Its death has been
pronounced every so often for years. Meanwhile, it manages to continue...
Virtually tangible?
In the tireless (and sometimes tiresome) debates over social media, I
come down pretty firmly on the “pro” side. Of course, that doesn’t mean...
The patriarch next door: Defining faith
In this issue, Krista Tippett recalls that as a teen she was eager to leave Oklahoma and a Southern Baptist grandfather who repre...
Does size matter? What counts for congregations: What counts for congregations
What exactly is a megachurch—aside from a church with more than 2,000 weekly worshipers?...
Century Marks
Parenting myth: Studies show that parents today spend more time with their kids, yet kids don't seem happier, more independent or more successful. They seem more troubled and needy. To raise healthy kids, put your marriage first and your children second, argues David Code (To Raise Happy Kids, Put Your Marriage First, Crossroad). Code says current priorities set a poor example of marriage for children and create anxious households—and kids soak up that anxiety.
My grandfather's faith: Contradictions and mysteries
My grandfather was the Reverend Calvin Titus Perkins, known as C.T. He was a Southern Baptist evangelist—a traveling preacher in Oklahoma, the former Indian Territory. He arrived in a covered wagon as a very young boy, and the famous Oklahoma dust seems embedded in the black-and-white photos I’ve seen of him. He was a man of passion but also a lover of order, a believer in rules. The bare bones Calvinism that flourished on the frontier offered him not only a faith but a way out of chaos and poverty.
A word of courage: Talking with my goddaughters
For some of us, small talk is a land mine. For those of us who are barren, the innocent inquiry, “Do you have children?” is far from small....
Christian Reformed Church regrets clergy sex abuse, adopts new policies
Not reporting it is not an option
Religion scholars agree to resume joint meetings: American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature
The largest academic organizations focusing on religion and biblical studies have formally mended a seven-year rift and will resume next year their concurrent annual meetings that in the past broug...
News Corp sells Beliefnet to small media company: BN Media is new owner
A small Virginia-based media company that specializes in channeling a portion of consumer spending to charity has acquired Beliefnet, a leading online Web site devoted to multifaith news, commentar...
Reformed communion urged to leave Geneva: Christianity "has moved dramatically to the Global South"
A global Protestant body should move its headquarters out of Geneva to cuts costs and to follow the global shift of Christianity to the Southern Hemisphere, says a U.S. Reformed church leader....
Seminaries in a multifaith setting: Claremont, Andover Newton, Meadville Lombard
Officials at the Claremont School of Theology, which has a long-term project to create a multifaith university and seminary campus, breathed a sigh of relief in late June when United Methodist Chur...
Just demands: Hondurans fight to make government work
Most of us are aware of North American–based Christian organizations doing relief and development work in various parts of the so-called Third World, World Vision being the largest and perhaps the best known. Some of us are aware of North American–based Christian organizations dealing with one or another form of injustice in the Third World, International Justice Mission being the largest of these.The Honduras-based Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa (Association for a More Just Society) is different. ASJ is indigenous to Honduras. It has chosen not to do relief and development work but to engage in the struggle against injustice, and it has crafted its struggle against injustice to fit the particulars of Honduran society—particulars that are very different from those of North American society. In particular, it has developed a distinct understanding of the task of the state in bettering the lives of the poor and of its own role as both a critic and an advocate of the state.
TV's true golden age: Cable for the best drama
The 1950s and 1960s are often cited as the golden age of television. Those were the days when comedians such as Groucho Marx and writers such as Rod Serling worked in the business....
Going mega: The trend toward bigger churches
The ever-growing phenomenon of the megachurch continues to elicit study from researchers intrigued by how these huge congregational complexes—with more than 2,000 adults and children attendin...
Oversized expectations: A small congregation gets megachurched
They were visitors in our worship service and, like all visitors in a small church, they were not hard to spot....