Latest Articles
God the troublemaker: Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29
Going into the temple of the Lord would never be taken lightly. Still, Isaiah could not have imagined what was about to happen.
A song for the Sabbath: Psalm 92
Most worshipers take the psalms for granted, treating them like background music that establishes a mood but has little grip on the imagination....
Torturous times: The need for a Gamaliel
Human beings give way too easily to the temptation to make our arguments on each other's bodies. The apostles' lives were saved because one learned man was willing the make his argument another way.
Seeds of doubt: Ikon's Peter Rollins
Peter Rollins is a prominent figure in the Emergent church movement in the United Kingdom. Schooled in philosophy, with several degrees from Queens University in Belfast, Rollins is determined to revitalize Christian practice with a peculiar blend of self-critical Christian practice and theory. He works with a group called Ikon, which engages in “anarchic experiments in transformance art” and holds “theodramatic” events in pubs and on the streets of Belfast.
On the shelf: Jesus Made in America, by Stephen J. Nichols
"Jesus, like most cultural heroes, is malleable," writes Stephen J. Nichols....
God the troublemaker: Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29
Going into the temple of the Lord would never be taken lightly. Still, Isaiah could not have imagined what was about to happen.
Church-based hate
Crisis recounts the sad stories of young people who, like Esau, cried for a blessing and too often did not receive it.
How the boom went bust
Paul Krugman is one economist who can analyze the complexities of an economic crisis, propose solutions and make the dis...
Getting Saved in America: Taiwanese Immigration and Religious Experience
That religion is especially salient for new immigrants is a commonplace in the sociology and history of U...
Sacred Assemblies and Civic Engagement: How Religion Matters for America's Newest Immigrants
The landscape of American religion is changing rapidly....
Evangelical Disenchantment: Nine Portraits of Faith and Doubt
It takes a certain level of self-deception to be a lukewarm evangelical. Intense piety is in the tradition’s DNA....
The Soloist
The Soloist is a rarity—a triumph-of-the-spirit movie in which the hero's triumph is ambiguous. It's a movie about accepting small successes and living within your limits.
A mind-body partnership
We could accuse this week's texts of setting up dichotomies: Romans
wants us to live by the spirit, not the flesh. Nicodemus and Jesus trade...
A double miracle
Some of us are in Pentecost graduate school. We're seminary-educated and
steeped in the church. We understand the preacher's dilemma when Easter...
Silent on guns: Why aren't we talking about this?
Why aren’t we talking about guns? A week before Easter, three Pittsburgh police officers were shot and killed while responding to a domestic disturbance....
The line on stem cells: Obama's middle way
Activists on both sides were disappointed when the Obama administration revealed its policy on embryonic stem cell research last month....
Century Marks
Living with contradiction: As a youth Garret Keizer was troubled with contradictions in Paul's letters. He raised the issue with his pastor, who pointed out a contradiction that Keizer hadn’t noticed: in Galatians 6 Paul says both that we are to bear one another’s burdens and that we are to bear our own burdens. But Keizer now doesn’t think this is a contradiction. We need both imperatives, Keizer says—self-reliance and social responsibility. “The trick is to get them to kiss” (Harper’s, April).