James M. Wall
Missing connections
If you want to understand why Americans are largely indifferent to the plight of the Palestinians, consider the focus of two recent news stories....
A new partnership
Vice-President Al Gore chose a safe venue—a Salvation Army gathering in Atlanta—to start talking about religion....
Power and mystery
We are here to acknowledge the old and welcome the new, and to anticipate the role of our publication in the 21st century.
Only questions
The question of "why" dominates our conversations about the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. But there is no answer to such a question....
Mideast time line
In the Middle East, May 4 and May 17 loom large on the calendar. For a long time it was feared that Yasir Arafat would declare the formation of a Palestinian state on May 4....
Truth telling
Throughout those tortured months leading to the impeachment trial of President Clinton, one point of national agreement stood out: truth telling is good; lying is bad....
Searching for connections
When Sue Miller's latest novel opens, Jo and Daniel Becker are enjoying a leisurely afternoon on a lake. He is fishing and she is resting, half asleep, in the bow of the boat....
Life on the playground
Across the street from the Christian Century's offices there used to be a wholesale outlet that sold barber supplies....
Wild children
Hard to believe that a year has passed since first we heard about Monica. It feels more like a decade that we've been in this Slough of Despond....
Eyes on the lies
In Wim Wenders's film Far Away, So Close, two angels look out across Berlin from atop the Brandenburg Gate....
Disproportionate punishment
Proportionality is the key theological word for the impeachment process, a word far superior to the solemn evocations of "the law" intoned by the ideologically driven conservatives on the Judiciary...
Come on down
A bunch of religious academics, 87 to be exact, have been fussing with some of us about being too easy on Bill Clinton....
Alphabet land
After a six-mile bus journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, a British journalist reported that his Israeli tourist guide used the term "terrorist" 32 times....
Slight hope for peace
Yasir Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu have departed from Maryland's Wye Plantation....
There but for the grace of God
Bill Clinton's remarks at the White House prayer breakfast more than made up for his less-than-contrite confession on the night of his grand jury appearance....
Films of challenge and hope
The text for this first-ever column in its new location is taken from the first chapter of John Irving's novel A Prayer for Owen Meany: "I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice-...
Chasing terrorists: Misguided missiles
According to one White House spin doctor, President Clinton didn't want to appear too contrite in his Monica speech because he knew he would soon be back on center stage as commander in chief, defe...