Barbara Brown Taylor
Caution:Bible class in session: Falling toward a deeper life of faith
It is Columbus Day, and I am halfway through the Bible survey course that I teach every other year....
Abraham’s brood: Abraham had eight sons, not one
When John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, I was sitting in Miss Wyatt’s seventh grade classroom at Tuscaloosa Junior High School....
Put on faith: The holy work of transformation
Last summer around this time I was on the island of Nantucket, once a whaling port and now a tourist destination, where I noticed numbers of people wearing canvas clothing in a peculiar shade of pi...
My day in court: Grace and gratitude
I was judged last week. I had been dreading my 3:00 p.m. appointment at the City of Atlanta Traffic Court ever since the policeman handed me the yellow citation a month and a half earlier....
Pulpit play
Discovering a Sermon: Personal Pastoral Preaching.
By Robert C. Dykstra. Chalice
Press, 154 pp., $18.99 paperback.
A lost virtue
Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue. Paul Woodruff. Oxford University Press, 248 pp., $19.95.
...Dust to dust: The holiness of ashes
I am more at home with the ashes of Lent than with the perfect lilies of Easter.
Tuning the E string: An enduring harmony as certain as the groaning of the world
A man I know raised four children with few requirements of them. But one of those few was that each of them learn to play a musical instrument....
Back to normal? The prophets address the evening news: The prophets address the evening news
Anyone who has done much hospital calling knows about the awakening that often accompanies serious illness or injury....
A case of mistaken identity: Children of one God
By now we are all too familiar not only with the major terrorist attacks on the World Trade towers and the Pentagon, but also with the smaller terrorist attacks on Muslims, Sikhs and Arab-Americans...
Graced occasions
A Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith and Fiction. By Ron Hansen. HarperCollins, 267 pp., $25.00.
...Learned ignorance
Graduation season has arrived, and commencement speakers everywhere are praising the virtues of education....
Hard words
One reason I teach undergraduate religion instead of preaching is that I am not sure preaching can be taught....
Map-reading skills
Two friends were driving to a conference at Kirkridge Retreat Center in Bangor, Pennsylvania....
True purpose
I have always envied people with a spectacular sense of call. I once had a job that involved reading applications for admission to a Methodist seminary....
Full house
When I travel to New York City, I like to stay in one of the guest rooms at General Seminary down in Chelsea....