Features
The most beautiful boat
My brother is nine and I am ten. Wood already obeys his hands when he asks it gently to work with him.
Considering the heavens: Astronomer Guy Consolmagno
"Everybody thinks the church stopped supporting science with Galileo. That's a myth tied up in the politics of the 19th century."
Cosmos from nothing? Questions at the edge of science
Modern cosmology indicates that the universe cannot have been created without any constraints. So where do we find the elusive nihilo?
When I was voiceless: How laypeople stepped in
My radiation treatment meant I'd lose my voice for six weeks, and our church couldn't afford pulpit supply. So the people decided to be my voice.
Luminous at the end: My sister's last 40 days
Modern medicine makes it difficult to die. Often, treatment seems to prolong not living so much as dying. With no earthly hope, Regan was spared all this.
Books
Running to the Fire, by Tim Bascom
Tim Bascom’s family, from small-town Kansas, returned to Ethiopia as missionaries when he was 15....
The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, Volume Two, by Walter Brueggemann
These sermons are organized according to the church year, with a handful prepared for milestones such as graduation or marriage....
Shaping Public Theology, by Max L. Stackhouse
The essays in this volume provide an accessible and comprehensive introduction to Max Stackhouse's thought, and they raise provocative questions about how we are constructing public theology today.
Eager to Love, by Richard Rohr, and When Saint Francis Saved the Church, by Jon M. Sweeney
Richard Rohr and Jon Sweeney, authors of two new books on St. Francis, would be united in their advice to us: forget the statue with the birds.
The price of peace
As Lawrence Wright nicely chronicles, Jimmy Carter faced a daunting task at Camp David in 1978. Carter, Menachem Begin, and Anwar el-Sadat each had much at stake.
Departments
Looking together
In To the Lighthouse, two people who don't get along find themselves looking at a bowl of fruit. "Looking together," writes Woolf, "united them."
Stargazing
It would be dishonest to attempt to squeeze nonreligious scientists into the mold of conventional belief. Nevertheless, they do end up confronting profoundly theological questions.
New churches, old Europe
European churches are currently engaged in an architectural culture war. This is startling given how weak the churches themselves have become.
Policing and race
Scandal and New Girl are not ordinarily “about” race. But as national conversations on police violence intensify, they’ve stepped into the discussion.
Counting the faithful
One practical lesson of the Pew report is the crucial need for mainliners to focus on passing the faith on to the next generation.
News
Gil Caldwell, King's ‘foot soldier’ for civil rights, works for LGBT rights, too: People
Gil Caldwell, 81, visited the campus of Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, for a glimpse of what might have been....
David Trobisch, NT scholar, directs collections for Museum of the Bible: People
David Trobisch, a New Testament scholar and former Heidelberg University professor, acts as a roving ambassador to academia and top-rate museums. He’s employed by the Green family of Oklahoma City—the plaintiffs in the U.S....
Italian navy, charity aid African migrants arriving by sea
Sitting outside the central train station in Catania, Italy, a 16-year-old who would only give his name as Simon hunched his knees up to his chest and wrapped himself up into a ball....
Christians in decline, nones on the rise
The United States is a significantly less Christian country than it was seven years ago. That’s the top finding in the Pew Research Center’s report, America’s Changing Religious Landscape, released May 12....
Aid agencies suspend operations as church leaders work to end conflict in South Sudan
Amid killings, rapes, and abductions, the humanitarian agency World Vision indefinitely suspended its operations in South Sudan’s Unity State....
Joining panel on poverty, Obama cites ‘transformative power’ that faith groups have
The African-American leader who grew up without a father and started his work life as a community organizer had plenty to say about poverty in our “winner take all” economy....
Gustavo Gutiérrez, theologian once investigated by Vatican, now featured speaker there
Decades ago the Vatican doctrinal office investigated and censured liberation theologians....
Ethiopian-Israeli Jews protest racism in society, policing
(The Christian Science Monitor) Tensions over Israel’s absorption of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants that have simmered for decades exploded into the open in early May, leading to dozens o...
Amid rise in refugees, Congo-Brazzaville bans wearing of veils
Congo-Brazzaville, a Central African nation, has banned women from wearing a full-face veil in public, saying it hoped the measure would prevent terrorist acts.
Congo-Brazzaville and France are the only two countries to ban the veil....
Lectionary
Ordinary #12B (Mark 4:35-41)
Like the stories that come before it, the storm at sea is a parable of reversal.
Ordinary #11B (Mark 4:26-34)
I have come to realize how mysterious a thing a seed is.