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August 10, 2022

Volume 139, Issue #16

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Features

Ministry with the grieving

Twenty of us gathered to talk about having a job that requires us to weep with those who weep.

by Cornelius Plantinga

Who is the mother of Israel?

In the Hebrew Bible, God’s love is maternal.

by Malka Z. Simkovich

The World Council of Churches in wartime

The grim future of communion with the Russian Orthodox Church

by Ross M. Allen

Practicing abolitionist spirituality

What are we willing to sacrifice for racial justice?

by Willie Dwayne Francois III

Sidebar

40 ways a church can go green

Light bulbs, bike racks, solar panels, and more

by Anna Woofenden

What does it mean to be a green church during a climate crisis?

It’s a way of life. But it starts small.

by Anna Woofenden

Books

American “heathens”

Kathryn Gin Lum explores the entwining of racial and religious stereotypes in the United States.

by Philip Jenkins

Imani Perry’s tour of the American South

South to America shows how one region’s beauty, losses, and inequities have shaped the country as a whole.

by Richard Lischer

Paul Mariani seeks wisdom among the ghosts

The poet, now in his eighties, asks profound questions in a dazzling array of poems.

by Philip C. Kolin

Departments

First Words

Concretizing the word

Judicial originalism is biblical literalism’s younger cousin.

by Peter W. Marty

Faith Matters

A theology of heaven for our time

To affirm the truth of heaven is to fire our spiritual imaginations for this life.

by Debie Thomas

Screen Time

Jurassic World and the scales of time

The latest film seems to have forgotten one of the delights of dinosaur nerdery: imagining the world without humans.

by Kathryn Reklis

On Art

Jesus Said to Her: “Give Me to Drink,” by Rania Kuhn

The serene saints of Egyptian Coptic Orthodox art are markedly different in face and form from the austere holy men and women of more familiar Byzantine images....

art selection and comment by John Kohan

From the Editors

Fighting climate change one small act at a time

Light bulbs and solar panels won’t solve the climate crisis. They’re signs of something greater.

News

Methodist woman donates 25 acres for Arkansas bird sanctuary

Betty Hinshaw had always lived in cities when her husband decided, in 1956, that they should move to rural Northwest Arkansas. She made him promise there wouldn’t be snakes....

by Sam Hodges

People

William Bergkamp named interim CEO of Friendship Press

William Bergkamp has been named the interim chief executive officer of Friendship Press, which supports the National Council of Churches and publishes the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible....

by Dawn Araujo-Hawkins