Latest Articles
Olive Kitteridge
Many of the main characters in Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel are old, and like aging itself, this book is not for wimps....
Julie and Julia
The title of Nora Ephron’s Julie and Julia equalizes its two plots: there is one about how Julia Child came to publish Mastering the Art of French Cooking and thereby alter the Americ...
Take and read
Few biblical scholars at work today combine Allison’s extensive learning, personal modesty and refreshing honesty....
Flaws and calls and healing
A friend heard I was writing about blind Bartimaeus and asked me a question: “Where do call and healing meet?...
A scandalous life
Americans love a good scandal. We’re mesmerized by the salacious details of celebrities’ lives, by politicians trapped in webs of greed and infidelity and by clergy gone astray....
Blogging toward Sunday
Why caricature the rich man as smug and self-righteous when Mark shows him humbly asking an existential question?
Graveside: The best and worst of ministry
The articles in this issue on funerals set me to thinking about my own experience and the changes I have witnessed in funerals....
In it together: Obama challenges individualism
Sociologist Robert Bellah calls individualism “the default mode” of American culture....
Century Marks
Pill popping: Sales of the antidepressant drug Cymbalta are up 14 percent since the summer of 2008. Unfortunately, some of the people who might benefit the most from the drug aren't getting it. A study of homeowners in Philadelphia on the brink of foreclosure revealed that 37 percent suffered from severe clinical depression, yet nearly half said they were too poor to buy prescription drugs (Toronto Star, September 2).
Truly global: Financing the ecumenical future
As the church’s growth in the global South rapidly and radically reshapes the profile of world Chris tianity, separation between the major streams and families of faith is growing deeper every day....
Briefly noted
Ten Maryland nuns—almost an entire religious community—converted from the Episcopal Church to Catholicism on September 3, saying that their former denomination had become too liberal in its ...
Russian patriarch wants former gulag turned into a spiritual center: Patriarch's grandfather was a prisoner there
The new patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church said that he would like to see a former Soviet gulag on the Solovetsky Islands off the northern coast of Russia transformed into a spiritual center....
Swiss faith leaders oppose national ban on minarets: Issue will be decided in November referendum
The Swiss Council of Religions, which includes Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders, has gone on record rejecting a call for a nationwide ban on the construction of minarets at mosques....
Watchdog group tallies Christian right visits to White House: Bush's guests
Key conservative Christian leaders made dozens of visits to the White House during President George W. Bush’s administration, a watchdog group announced....
Accused Baptist swindler sued for gambling debt: Allen Stanford
An accused swindler who allegedly traded on his Southern Baptist faith in business dealings owes more than a quarter-million dollars in gambling debt, according to a lawsuit filed by the Bellagio c...
World Council of Churches urges stop to settlements, but Isreal moving ahead: Israeli policy "very hard to understand"
The World Council of Churches has called on the Israeli government to “implement an open-ended freeze” on all settlement construction and expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem “in preparati...
Poll finds more positive views of U.S. Muslims: Pew Forum findings
As the nation marked the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, almost six in ten Americans agreed that Muslims are the subject of discrimination—more than members of other major religio...
Zondervan to publish updated NIV Bible: Will discontinue Today's New International Version
The copyright holder of the New International Version of the Bible says that it will phase out the controversial gender-inclusive Today’s New Inter national Version translation once a panel of evan...