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August 7, 2007

Volume 124, Issue #16
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Features

Feature

No going back: Freedom, Moscow style

Despite assurances that the cold war is over, relations between Russia and the United States suggest a certain nostalgia for that era on both sides. The heightened tensions and lowered expectations may have consequences for Russian democracy.

by Robin Lovin
Feature

Busted for bloopers: Marty runs out of luck

In this era of intense scrutiny, the media pounce on every celebrity misstep. Up to this point in his long career, Christian scholar and author Martin Marty had beaten the odds. His run of good luck came to an end last week, however, when it was revealed that Marty had duped the public for years by publishing material he knew to be false.

by Eric Scott
Cover Story

Counting the cost: A crusade against consumer debt

Heather from Oregon sounds like a born-again woman, financially speaking. “I finally got everything paid. . . . No more credit cards, no more student loan!“ She thanks radio personality and anticredit crusader Dave Ramsey for freeing her from her bondage to consumer debt.She's not the only Ramsey fan. The tough-talking, quick-witted evangelical radio personality from Nashville has an audience of millions that includes both religious and secular listeners.
by Jason Byassee
Film

Rat's tale

Remember when children would learn key life lessons from their parents—when core beliefs and specific values would be passed down from one generation to the next whenever an opportunity for a lesson presented itself? With the continued splitting of the nuclear family, more and more kids are relying on the media to instruct them on the vagaries of growing up and finding a place in the world.

By John Petrakis

Books

Books in review

Genesis 11:1-9

All the earth had one language and the same words. When they traveled toward the east, they found a valley in the land of Shinar, and they settled there....
translated by Theodore Hiebert

A place for women

...
By Trudy Bush

For fairer trade

In 2002, Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz published a controversial but influential book titled Globalization and Its Discontents....
By Max Stackhouse

Time out

...
By James C. Howell

Plain Secrets

Last summer I visited the elderly Amish bishop of the church district where my parents were members when I was a child....
reviewed by Levi Miller

Matthew (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible)

Commentaries tend to fluctuate between arid, compendious technical analyses and vivid but tendentious tours de force; few of ...
reviewed by A. K. M. Adam

BookMarks

Many of us seek to block out sound, from cell phone chatter to emergency-vehicle sirens....

Departments

Editor's Desk

Well suited: Wearing the collar

Trudy Bush’s review of two important books on American Muslim women makes reference to Islamic dress....
by John Buchanan
From the Editors

Judgment day? A goal of restoration: A goal of restoration

One of the lectionary texts on the Sunday after 9/11 was Psalm 51, which traditionally has been understood as King David’s plea to God to have mercy on his sins....
Faith Matters

Learning curve: Intelligent pastors

Josh Waitzkin, the chess prodigy who was the inspiration for the film Searching for Bobby Fischer, describes his approach to learning in a new book, The Art of Learning. Waitzkin refers to his experiences, first as a child learning chess, and then as a young adult learning to become a martial arts master.“It is rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top,” he says, “but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill set. Depth beats breadth any day of the week, because it opens a channel for the intangible, unconscious, creative components of our hidden potential.” Waitzkin calls the process “a journey in the pursuit of excellence.”
by L. Gregory Jones
Impressions

Correctives: Journalistic kudos

Journalistic kudos to New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt, who In a July 8 column headed “Seeing Al Qaeda Around Every Corner” criticized his own newspaper’s coverage of President Bush’s jingoistic speech on June 28 to the Naval War Col...
by James M. Wall
M.E.M.O.

Name game: Grace is making a comeback

As family names and old religious stand-bys continue to lose favor, parents are spending more time and money on the issue [of names for their children] and are increasingly turning to strangers for help.” The Wall Street Journal (June 22) ...
by Martin E. Marty

News

Century Marks

Century Marks

Where the money is: The Congressional Research Service reported that CEOs are paid, on average, 179 times more than rank-and-file workers—almost double the 90-to-one ratio of 1994. If the federal minimum wage had risen as much as executive pay has since 1990, it would now be $22.61 an hour, according to the Institute for Policy Studies. Instead, it increased to $5.85 on July 24, the first increase in a decade (AP).

Rome reasserts Protestant 'defects' Protestant groups are "Christian communities": Protestant groups are "Christian communities"

While mainline Protestants and some other non-Catholics are upset over a Vatican statement asserting that the Catholic Church is the only valid church, a number of ecumenical leaders mostly shrugged, saying the papal-endorsed words are nothing new...

Is the Tower of Babel wobbling? A new view of the tower: A new view of the tower

The unfinished Tower of Babel has stood for centuries in art, literature and biblical commentaries as an outrageous, heaven-reaching challenge to the God of Genesis, who responded by scrambling the common language of the citizens and dispersing th...
by John Dart

Kudzu artist Marlette dies in car crash: A Pulitzer Prize winner

Doug Marlette, whose editorial cartoons often lampooned fundamentalist religion but whose folksy comic strip Kudzu celebrated a rural Southern Baptist pastor, was killed in an automobile accident July 10. He was 57....

L.A. archdiocese settles abuse cases for $660 million: Mahony issues public apology

After more than four years of delays, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has reached a landmark $660 million settlement with 508 alleged victims of sexual abuse, the largest such payment thus far in the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandals....

Faith leaders laud Korean nuke shutdown: The value of diplomacy

An interfaith coalition of religious leaders is congratulating the Bush administration for reaching an agreement with North Korea to shut down its nuclear weapons facilities....

Florida Methodists spread insurance risk, explore national plan: Insurance costs hinder ministry

Wesley United Methodist Church is an active congregation of a few hundred members in Marco Island, Florida....

Franklin takes post at Morehouse College: Robert M. Franlkin named president

Black-church scholar Robert M. Franklin has been named president of Morehouse College in Atlanta....

Briefly noted

Governor Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana has signed into law two bills banning a controversial form of late-term abortion, making that state the first to outlaw the procedure after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal ban in April....

Episcopal priest who embraced Islam suspended for year: Ann Holmes Redding relieved of duties

An Episcopal priest who announced that she has embraced Islam has been suspended for one year by her supervising bishop, who said the woman’s dual religious loyalties were in “inherent” conflict....

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