May 3, 2005

After her husband leaves her—apparently to run off with his secretary—Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen) is left with four daughters between the ages of 15 and 22. The Upside of Anger is about reconstituting one’s existence when mostly what you feel is fury and the desire to retreat. It’s also about the unanticipated directions life can take when it seems to have reached a dead end.

Army Sergeant Kevin Benderman, 40, faces a military trial for refusing to return to Iraq for a second tour of duty. The trial is scheduled for May 11 at an army base in Georgia. A Tennessean of Southern Baptist background, Benderman joined the army in 1987, was honorably discharged in ’91 and reenlisted in 2000. He has a distinguished military record, including a dozen medals. He has applied to be classified as a conscientious objector. The Century asked him about his change of mind.

When the books of the Bible are read in the context of worship, they become the scripture of the church. Just as the greeting turns an assembly into a church, so the proclamation of Old and New Testament passages turns words into the Word.

Officials of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) decided to cut off funding for congregation Avodat Yisrael as of July 1. The funding had been a source of controversy inside and outside the denomination. The March 29 decision, made by a special administrative commission charged with overseeing the Messianic Jewish congregation for the Philadelphia presbytery, stemmed largely from the congregation's failure after two years to attract members and dollars, though the theological debate surrounding the congregation also played a part.

In February the Jesuit theologian Roger Haight, former professor at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, received notification that the Vatican had found “serious doctrinal errors” in his 1999 book Jesus: Symbol of God (Orbis) and that he was forbidden to teach as a Catholic theologian. The news did not come as a surprise. He had been involved for five years in an exchange with the Vatican and his Jesuit superior general over the contents of the book. He resigned from Weston in 2003 and has since taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

As President Clinton’s press secretary from 1995 to 1998, Mike McCurry was a familiar face on the nation’s TV screens. Before serving in that post—what he calls a “dream job”—he was a spokesman at the Department of State and director of communications for the Democratic National Committee. He is now a partner at Public Strategies Washington, Inc., a communications consulting firm, and is chairman of Grassroots Enterprise, a software provider. A member of St.

I went to look for “Main’s Folly” the other day. It’s at the back of the church property, down the old road to the back and left at the Chinaberry grove where I used to preach every Easter. Go past the rock altar and head toward the ring of stones where we cooked hot dogs back in the old days. Main’s Folly is about ten steps and five years past the cactus patch where Sarah saw that snake.

Can you be a practicing Jew and also believe that Jesus is the messiah? The customary answer is no. Though Christianity began as a Jewish sect, it quickly became an all-gentile affair. Indeed, Christians came to understand themselves as people who by definition were not Jewish and who believed that Christianity had “superseded” Judaism—that is, “taken its seat” of favor before God. The word “Jew” came to mean those who had denied Christ, even murdered him, having been unable to see their own scripture’s clear prediction of his coming.