Latest Articles
Marriage debate
It would be hard to find more divisive, jabbing rhetoric on marriage than in these publications ...
Expanded territory
"Ruin” is the title of the prologue to this memoir by wilderness activist Amy Irvine, and indeed, ruins—both material and metaph...
Much Madness Is Divinest Sense: Wisdom in Memoirs of Soul-Suffering
Ignorance is the opposite of love,” writes the father of a young man with schizophrenia, reflecting on his eff...
A Church of Her Own: What Happens When a Woman Takes the Pulpit
Sarah Sentilles opens A Church of Her Own by proclaiming that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is “the most sex...
Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh’s marvelous novel Brideshead Revisited begins as a coming-of-age story....
Fear and trembling
It's one thing to profess; another to do. Christians put a lot of emphasis on professing—belief, repentance—but we also know that without doing, those words are just so much hot air....
Toward a somersaulting spirit
I got a delightful report from a colleague's gregarious seven-year-old the other evening about summer church school. When the little girl asked what my favorite Bible story is, I hemmed and hawed....
Summertime assortment: Reading suggestions
There are always far more books than there are hours for reading, so I try to strike a balance between what I think I need to read and what I know I’ll simply enjoy....
Century Marks
It isn’t funny: Timothy Shriver, chair of the Special Olympics, says that the movie Tropic Thunder is an unchecked assault on the dignity of people with intellectual disabilities. Boycott it, he says, and “talk to your children about language that is bullying and mean” (Washington Post, August 11).
Shattered hearts: AIDS orphans in Zambia
“We did not know that a child can mourn and grieve. We thought they were too small to understand what had happened.”...
Mennonite dating service: An online adventure
A few months ago, I discovered a Mennonite online dating service: MennoMeet (a friend asked, “MennoMeet or MennoMeat?”). It’s a members-only network, so to participate you have to apply....
Briefly noted
A California federal judge has ruled that the University of California had a “rational basis” for rejecting science and history courses taught at Christian high schools....
Village: Church bells not a noisy nuisance: Peal practice
A town hall in southern England has ruled that its 14th-century village church has just as much right to ring its bells as the villagers have to operate their noisy lawnmowers and hedge trimmers on...
Episcopal Church to apologize for slavery: Service will be at church founded by former slave
Continuing its efforts to address a practice some members call “a stain on the church,” the Episcopal Church will hold a “Day of Repentance” to publicly apologize for its involvement in the slave t...
Shakers cling to life—and no, they don't just make furniture: Only a few members left
Arnold Hadd is the last Shaker man on Earth....
Sale of closed church enriches ABC seminary: Funds will endow chair in congregational health
An American Baptist seminary in Shawnee, Kansas, has received a gift in excess of $2.2 million—the largest in the school’s history—from the former members of a St....
Reformed, Disciples groups seeking closer ties: Two global bodies
Two global church bodies of Protestants—the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Disciples Ecumenical Consultative Council—say they are looking to establish a closer relationship....