Features
The war within: A veterans moral injury
In Iraq, my perception of good and evil began to erode. What I lost was a world that made moral sense.
The last Sunday: When its time for a church to close
Each day in the U.S., nine churches close their doors for good. This isn’t news—but it’s hard to talk about when it’s your church.
Final gifts: How institutions can die well
Will Campbell once held a funeral for a town. This odd act showed how the practices of death and dying aren’t just for individuals.
Hope for hurting bodies
The story goes that God got a body. I’ve often pondered the relationship between incarnation and pain.
Books
Sorry About That, by Edwin L. Battistella
In this anecdotal study of public apology, Edwin Battistella shows that our anxieties and confusions about confession are rooted in a deeper ambiguity: the tension between the culpable self and the apologetic self.
Endangered faiths
Gerard Russell’s account of disappearing Middle Eastern religions has an elegiac quality. It’s heartrending and often infuriating.
Texas tough
Other states have a history of violence, suspicion of government, and more Baptists than people. What makes Texas different? Robert Wuthnow says it’s oil.
Curious, by Ian Leslie
In Ian Leslie’s telling, curiosity is far from a valued quality. Augustine, he notes, equated curiosity with temptation.
Found Theology, by Ben Quash
For Ben Quash, scripture and tradition are givens. Our task is to discover and reinterpret what we have been given.
Departments
Jonah and the Whale, from an early Christian marble sarcophagus in Rome (fourth century)
Scenes from the story of Jonah were among the most popular in early Christian art....
What the church is made of
Churches need new thinking—on the part of denominational executives, pastors brave enough to walk into challenging situations, and people willing to let go of a church model that no longer works.
Sharing the peace
The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship board knew it had a choice: build an institution, or build a movement.
Trial by podcast
Like Sarah Koenig, I want to know if we can believe Adnan Syed. But I only know Syed through Koenig’s accounts of him in Serial.
Lesser-known heroes
Everyone is ready to bow a knee at the mention of Bonhoeffer’s name. Precious few of us have even heard of Ralph Hamburger.
Rape on campus
Attaining justice for victims of sexual assault cannot be a matter of belief or disbelief. They are individuals, not symbols of a cause.
News
Vatican ends inquiry of nuns in U.S.
The Vatican ended an inquiry begun six years ago into U.S. nuns with a report designed to bury their differences and celebrate their contribution to the Catholic Church....
Remembering Chuck Colson, bipartisan federal panel aims to reform prisons
Chuck Colson turned seven months behind bars into an opportunity to start over. Now the Justice Department is looking to his example as it tries to reform the federal prison system....
Kenyan Christians alarmed by increased persecution from militants in region
Church leaders say attacks by Somalia’s al-Shabaab militants in the northeast region of Kenya are increasingly taking on an anti-Christian tenor, including targeted executions of non-Muslims....
Interfaith couples choose ‘both/and’
(The Christian Science Monitor) Jean Tutt was a freshman at Harper College in Palatine, Illinois, when she met Brian Saucier....
Caught between two worlds, Druze in Israel fight for their rights
Bullet holes pepper the front windows of the old city council office and paramilitary police in armored jeeps patrol the main street in the mixed Muslim and Druze village of Abu Snan in the Galilee region....
Survey finds one in three in U.S. don’t want clergy for civil marriages
Two surveys released in December by LifeWay Research show some support for separating religious marriage from civil marriage.
In a survey of 2,000 American adults, the Nashville-based Christian research company found the following....
Lectionary
Sunday, January 18, 2015: 1 Samuel 3:1-20
I used to think that the end of Samuel’s story was when he learns to listen to God. I wasn’t curious at all about what God has to say.
Sunday, January 11, 2015: Mark 1:4-11
I eschew the danger of the river, but I know that it is where God leads me.