Features
A garden of gratitude: Poet Ross Gay
"I've learned a lot from working with trees. More important, I've worked with people on imagining how to love each other."
Other kinds of others: A Chapel Hill church redefines open and affirming
It was the congregation's pro-LGBTQ stance that brought Robbyn Davis-Ellison's family to United Church. The commitment to racial justice kept them there.
When learning hurts: Content warnings in seminary classrooms
Theological educators don't just teach a particular kind of content. We also model a process for engaging with sensitive issues.
Being they: God and nonbinary gender
We call God "Father" and "Mother" because children don't say "Parent, Parent." But what will my children call me?
Books
The kingdom of God is like a farm
Nineteenth-century agrarians believed that community is more important than the individual and solidarity is more important than profit.
Christ in all that is
All living things are touched by divine grace—and caught up together in movement toward union with God.
Need to confess
The whole church needs to encounter the courage and truthfulness of the fact that God created us good, to love and be loved.
The United States of intoxication
18th-century colonists drank beer with breakfast and continued throughout the day, with average consumption twice as high as today’s.
Departments
When the church gets it wrong
The woman looked at me with fear, pain, and trust—all things that the church has instilled in its faithful all these centuries.
Prophet Jeremiah, by Donatello (ca. 1386–1466)
This life-size marble sculpture was originally intended for the campanile, the bell tower adjacent to the Duomo, the main cathedral in Florence. It was part of a series of works featuring 16 Old Testament prophets....
Dying to leave a legacy
What happens when a congregation's ministry is something we can't see without a rearview mirror?
Remote-controlled warfare
Eye in the Sky suggests a Godlike view of drone warfare. But what if we consider a different theological angle?
Conservatives for climate action
Trump and the RNC platform have little to say about climate action. Yet many steps we could take are inherently conservative.
News
Episcopal Divinity School in Massachusetts to stop offering degrees in 2017
The Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will cease to grant degrees at the end of the upcoming academic year, the seminary’s board of trustees decided July 21 in an 11-4 vote....
Research points to humility as an aid in clergy conflict with their congregations
Fostering humility, intellectual humility in particular, is a way to reduce congregational conflict, according to recent studies....
Evan Mawarire leads national "stay-away" in Zimbabwe
Also protesting President Robert Mugabe, Archbishop of York John Sentamu hasn't worn a clerical collar in nine years.
Tim LaHaye, Left Behind creator, dies at 90
Tim LaHaye, a creator of the Left Behind series, who was once named the most influential American evangelical, died July 25 in the San Diego area at age 90 after a recent stroke....
Methodists elect first openly LGBT bishop
For years, Karen Oliveto refused to allow her name to be cast for the role of bishop in the United Methodist Church because she “didn’t want to harm the church,” she said....
Russian Orthodox Church praises global council boycotted by leaders
The Russian Orthodox Church, whose boycott of a major summit of Orthodox Christian leaders threatened to slow down efforts to promote greater unity, has declared the meeting “an important event in the history of the conciliar process.”...
Two young fighters speak as Israelis and Lebanese mark ten years since war
(The Christian Science Monitor) Since the brutal 34-day war between Israel and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah organization, which ended ten years ago on August 14, the border has enjoyed...
Churches to Russia: We're not leaving
Several religious denominations remain defiant in the face of new laws that would ban them from proselytizing in Russia....
Lectionary
Ordinary 23C (Luke 14:25-33)
In this week’s Gospel text, the piercing hyperbole about family and discipleship normally receives top billing homiletically. However, I am newly struck by Jesus’ words regarding building a tower.
Ordinary 22C (Luke 14:1, 7-14)
Jesus offers his unsolicited advice fully aware of the jousting for prominence that occurs in our social spaces. He sees our mad dash to the front row so that we can be seen by the chief executive officer, the potential major donor, or the bishop.