Latest Articles

The villagers of Nazareth knew Jesus, and they thought him to be nothing special.

The memory still fills me with shame. I was a junior in high school, and had joined the small group of guys that I usually ate lunch with in the cafeteria....

Like most pastors, I claim that the face-to-face meeting is the best way to do the ministry of the church; also like most pastors, I spend an enormous amount of time reading and composing e-mails. I am driven not so much by my own schedule or preferences as by those of my church members. Many of them use e-mail all day long and expect the church to do the same. If I want to keep up, I have to keep typing.

"Oreon told me she’s praying for you,” my husband, Gary, said in between bites. We were having dinner one night when I was having a particularly stressful time at work. Gary is a pastor at a downtown Chicago church, and Oreon is one of the staff members there. “Why is Oreon praying for me?” I asked. I hadn’t had more than a passing hello with Oreon in weeks. “She saw your Facebook status message,” he said.

What does it take to be a humanitarian worker? Idealism and commitment, surely, but also a gift for improvisation....

...

For a brief moment in the early months of 2008, Americans cared about the connections between African-American religio...

Something has spooked July Montgomery’s cows....

President Barack Obama couldn’t have been more explicit in his inaugural ad...

...

A riveting sci-fi adventure, Star Trek is the first of the summer blockbusters that audiences can truly care about. Its action is rooted in feeling rather than gimmickry. ...

Rejection has been the traveling companion of the gospel from the beginning.

This week's texts are great stewardship texts. Why not use them that way? We can ask for money more than once a year.

What I knew about Andrew Jackson, the seventh president, was pretty much confined to the popular image of him: he was the hero of the battle of New Orleans and a “man of the people.” After reading ...

Democracy is a wonderful form of government, especially compared to the alternatives....

Outside the gate: Three British doctors started a hunger strike last month in Egypt because they’ve been denied access to Gaza via the Rafah crossing. Their aim is to start a cardiac surgery unit in Gaza City to train medical students and junior doctors. They want the British embassy to pressure Egypt to grant their passage (Guardian, May 19).

On April 1, Robert Powell resigned from the Dallas police force. Powell is the rookie police officer who stopped NFL player Ryan Moats for rolling through a red light....

Christian Children’s Fund, an organization that helps needy children across the globe, has decided to change its name to ChildFund International as part of its plan to broaden its outreach....

Churches and Christian groups in India have hailed as a victory for secular governance and a nonsectarian society the convincing victory of the ruling coalition, which did much better than preelect...

Bishops in the United Methodist Church have voted themselves a pay cut after “recognizing the financial challenges facing the church.”...