Samuel Wells

Imagine you're walking through a big city and you see a homeless person. You have several options.

Be humble. Think of the imagination of God that brought creation into being; there could have been nothing.

Perhaps it's only when we let go of who and what our loved one was that we can receive who they are now.

James K. A. Smith suggests that the work of Richard Rorty can be a source of renewal—even though it makes many conservative Christians shrink in horror.

The New Testament offers two compelling models for our relationship with money. When translated into a vision for a whole society, each is flawed.

The collar says something to parishioner and stranger alike: while this doesn’t have to be the most important conversation of your life, it can be.

What if the agreed daily wage is forgiveness and eternal life?

The debate about Scottish independence fits neatly into the categories the academic discipline of ethics likes to produce.

"Sam!" she says. She's greeting me as if I changed her life. Unfortunately, I haven't a clue who she is.

Rowan Williams favors a kind of secularism that requires an honest broker to mediate and manage genuine difference, rather than one that aspires to little more than maximized choice.

Maybe this is your real prayer for others and for yourself. “Make this trial and tragedy a glimpse of your glory, a window into your world.”

I return to this book more than almost any other because it reminds me why I’m a priest, what the church is, and how God is at work in places before I ever show up. Donovan shows me that what has become the ritual of worship is really a pattern of practices that are needed to remake community and shape society. 

Vivaldi wrote his Magnificat for a choir of female orphans to sing for their supper. They were truly singing Mary's song.

After two years, I visited my ailing friend. Eventually, he asked for the Eucharist—and suddenly every word mattered.

I have conversations with a wide variety of clergy colleagues. But they're all the same conversation: "Is it well with your soul?"

I asked Michael's mother what it was like to say goodbye. "Oh, it wasn't much fun," she said. Then she told me what she put in the coffin.

I asked an older English woman who left the church long ago why she now wants to come back. Her response made the color drain from my face.

When I open the sanctuary doors in the morning, I see the face of Christ in the shadow side of the welfare state.

American culture focuses on the law. But Naboth's vineyard reminds us that a healthy society is about relationships first and rules second.