March 6, 2007

When I was young, the youth leader of our church would occasionally ask for someone to give a testimony during the worship service. All the kids would get quiet, shuffle their feet and squirm. For some reason I would feel the responsibility of the group shift slowly to my shoulders. The silence became more and more uncomfortable until at last I would give in and speak up.

The multidenominational Christian Churches Together in the USA has just about got it together—enough at least for a small celebration. From Catholic and Orthodox bishops to Protestant and Pentecostal clergy, representatives of 36 church bodies meeting in California lit candles and one by one signed a document indicating their commitment to advance a common Christian witness.

When I tell other pastors that I hate weddings and love funerals, they smile knowingly. Of course, the dark humor rings true with them—every pastor I know can tell a “wedding from hell” story, and all pastors can think of a few funerals at which they’d love to preside. In my colleagues’ smiles I also see an understanding, born from firsthand experience, that funerals—and the events that precede and follow them—present some of the most meaningful opportunities for pastors to witness to the grace and love of God.

For complex historical and religious reasons,Americans have found it easy to view the U.S. as the “new Israel,” the carrier of God’s mandates in the world. This view has led to an expansive notion of the nation’s “manifest destiny” and to all manner of initiatives under the general rubric of America’s exceptional character and mission.

Devotees of children’s literature have received an unexpected lift from the nearly simultaneous release of the new film of Charlotte’s Web, based on the story by E. B. White, and Miss Potter, a biography of Peter Rabbit’s creator, Beatrix Potter. Each in its way is a charmer.