Latest Articles
Wilderness of uncertainty: Forgotten virtues to relearn
Theologian N. T. Wright says that even when you are in the Promised Land you are never far from the wilderness....
Earmark excess: An opportunity for reform
Complaining about earmarks is a staple of U.S. politics. The specific projects that members of Congress tack on to spending bills have long sparked public outrage....
Century Marks
Thanks to Darwin: Mark A. Throntveit and Alan G. Padgett of Luther Seminary argue that Darwin’s work frees us to read the Bible on its own terms and helps us to realize that science and the Bible have different, and not necessarily conflicting, agendas. “Science seeks answers to questions of what and how, while biblical interpretation seeks answers to questions of who and why.” The Genesis accounts of creation are less about the origins of creation and more about the ordering of chaos and forming of relationship with us humans (Word & World, Winter).
Art you can believe in: Artists outside the church and within it
In December, the arts-and-faith journal Image published its 20th-anniversary edition, showcasing the work of poets, short-story writers, t...
Vatican opposes faith-based Web addresses: Could lead to "bitter disputes"
Establishing Internet domain names based on religion would lead to “bitter disputes” among churches, the Vatican has warned the nonprofit entity responsible for the Internet’s naming system....
Lutheran bishops seek to promote AIDS awareness: Leaders undergo HIV testing
Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have joined African religious leaders in publicly undergoing testing to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS and to end a legacy of church stigma an...
Obama ends federal funding ban on stem cell research: Reverses Bush administration policy
With an executive order, President Obama made official what many scientists had long anticipated and many religious conservatives had long feared—he lifted his predecessor’s near-total ban on feder...
Sixty Oregonians died in assisted suicides in 2008: Under Death with Dignity Act
Sixty Oregonians ended their lives last year by taking a lethal drug dose prescribed under the Death with Dignity Act, state officials have reported....
Baptist World Alliance slashes its 2009 budget: Worst financial situation in years
Members of the Baptist World Alliance’s executive committee, after hearing a sobering financial report detailing investment losses over the last year, agreed to slash the group’s 2009 budget by $90...
Survey: U.S. grows less religious, less Christian: Self-identified Christians down 10 percent
The nation has grown less religious in the last two decades, a new study shows, with a 10 percent drop in the number of people who call themselves Christians and increases in all 50 states among th...
Shootings give rise to church security concerns: Balancing hospitality with safety
The day after a church shooting on a March Sunday that left an Illinois pastor dead, church security consultant Marc Brooks fielded calls from eight congregations eager to get firearms into the han...
Giving up online social networks for Lent? A virtual fast: A virtual fast
Most days you can find college sophomore Adan Farrah on his laptop checking in with his classmates, looking at photos and updating his personal page on Facebook....
Mainline called uncounted force for change: Clergy support administration on social spending
The White House has an oft-overlooked religious ally for solving the country’s social problems through greatly expanded government programs, if a new survey of senior pastors in mainline Protestant...
Poll watching: Tova Wang on election reform
Politicians and activists were making sweeping accusations about voter fraud during the 2008 election season, warning that thousands of illegitimate registrations had been submitted and that election theft was immiment. Is the registration system vulnerable to fraud? How can it be improved? Tova Wang, a nationally recognized expert on election reform and vice president for research at Common Cause, a citizens’ lobbying group, answers questions about the voter registration controversies of 2008 and discusses proposals for improving the voting process.
Congregational snapshot: Four church trends
Probably every churchgoer can say how his or her church is changing or has changed....
A saint for hard times: Saint Hedwig
I’ve been wondering who would be a good patron saint for the deepening recession in which we find ourselves....
There's a word for it: A collection of neologisms
New inventions often result in new words, or neologisms. Radar, for instance, emerged as an acronym for a “radio detection and ranging” device....
Ever coming toward us: John 20:1-18
In his collection of poems titled After the Lost War, Andrew Hudgins chronicles the life of a Confederate soldier during and just after the Civil War....
Stand and deliver: Performers in the pulpit
At the annual banquet of the University of Chicago Divinity School, first-year student Rebecca Anderson knocks ’em dead with a stand-up comedy routine. But then she should: she was previously a stand-up comic. “When I tell people here I grew up in a fundamentalist family, they treat me like I just got out of a POW camp. 'Oh my God,' they say, 'Are you OK?'"