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John Marks Templeton, who first made his mark as a pioneer international investor, is being remembered in religious circles for his commitment to the most prominent prize in religion: the annual Te...

Social-networking Web sites like Facebook and MySpace are redefining the way many Americans build and maintain relationships—and also how their churches communicate....

A recent poll indicating sharp national divisions along racial lines should remind Americans of the need for “sacred conversations on race,” said the head of the National Council of Churches....

Heather Rosema of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is precisely the kind of Christian voter that Senator Barack Obama covets....

Earlier this year the Fox network, showing either the effects of the writers’ strike or the signs of social decay, offered a gem of televised exploitation—the kind that repulses you but you can’t h...

Do you see your writing and ministry as connected?For me, my writing and my ministry are joined, and I think they are joined for many of my readers, who are looking for some kind of spiritual nourishment as well as entertainment. Usually they've had some kind of religion in the past, at least enough background to know what is going on. They get the fact that Atticus is the story of the prodigal son.To entertain and to educate are the dual functions of any writer. I want people to notice God’s actions in their lives and in the lives of others and to have sympathy for other people. I want them to see that there is something going on here that matters. You can’t do that by hitting people over the head; you have to slowly draw them into it.In a sense, I am trying to proselytize by means of entertaining fiction. Fiction is ideally suited for this because it involves people in other worlds. It lets them see that world through a character’s eyes. Then they find themselves making judgments about whether a character is acting properly or improperly.Fiction, by its nature, asks ethical questions. As you are reading, you are constantly asking whether a character has done what you would have done or if the character has gone awry in some way. When you are reading, whether you are aware of it or not, you are offering advice to the character, and thus offering advice to yourself.

Seventeen-year-old Liam Q. joined the U.S. Navy to see the world. His test scores marked him for further training in a technical specialty, but Liam wanted to steer an aircraft carrier, so the navy made him a helmsman. As every sailor knows, shore leave is the most dangerous part of any cruise, and this turned out to be true for Liam. He fell in love with an older woman and was convicted of shooting her husband. In 1983, at the age of 19, he embarked on a different kind of cruise: a life sentence “up the river.”

Like everyone else I know, I am feeling the pinch of a straitened economy. I eat out less often, I drive less far and I write fewer checks to my favorite charities....

Former Colorado senator Gary Hart has drafted a policy blueprint for the next U.S. president....

To Dietrich BonhoefferExecuted by the Nazis in April 1945...

Only Peter stands up to answer Jesus' question.

How do we determine and define what is pure and wholesome?

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Shortly after the attacks of September 11, President Bush declared that the perpetrators had “violated the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith...

In 2000 David Buttrick began a project that focused on the language of Jesus and the ways in which attention to Jesus’ languag...

The impulse to philosophize about sports is often best suppressed—or confined to the back porch....

I struggle with the story of Jesus encountering the Canaanite woman....

When I am in the locker room of my study, feeling dejected, downcast, weary and defeated from the preaching effort, I read:...

The version of Christianity that appears in the media often embarrasses me: it’s narrow, sectarian, exclusive and sometimes mean-spirited....

A recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that Americans are quite accepting of religions other than their own....