Feature

Holy Week and the art of losing

“I like to think I’m a grassroots organizer," says Isaac S. Villegas of Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship. "I rearrange pews; I find people to make sloppy joes for hungry people.”

“Online, I minister to people I may never see. But I am starting a conversation that may lead them to a church.”

Chronic illness is like Walden: life is pared down to essentials. But unlike Thoreau, I can’t walk away.

Anxiety has a way of turning otherwise faithful Christians into foxhole atheists. I'm too busy worrying to pray.

Docetic offertory prayers imply that the money inside the envelopes in the offering plates is unimportant, even embarrassing.

Is exaggerated violence in Passion plays merely a product of our baser natures? Or does the savagery actually have a proper place in the crucifixion's meaning?

Like Jacob and Esau, my mother and my aunt met each other one day after 20 years of estrangement.

"I met an activist who said, 'You should go back to Virginia and start to organize.' It took me about three months to send out the first e-mail."

To build stronger communities, we need to get in the habit of recognizing what undergirds our relationships. We can't afford to take it for granted.

I worry about avian flu. I worry that my identity is being stolen right this second. I check four times to make sure I turned the stove off. It's breathless, compulsive behavior.

"Religious commitments are no longer taken for granted as part of North American people's lives," says Scott Kershner of Holden Village, a Lutheran retreat center in Washington State. "So space opens up to ask very basic and interesting questions."

Vanderbilt was not the first school to offer theological education in a prison. But it did pioneer the approach of having seminarians learn in company with prisoners.

"Parents are the most important faith guides, mentors and teachers a kid will ever have."

The children from our church walked into the synagogue quietly. But when the rabbi invited them to look at the ark containing the Torah scroll, they lost all reserve.

We need states to take in enough revenue to provide the services people rely on. We need this more than we need tax-free online shopping.

In many cases, shouting "Elephant in the room!" is an attempt to avoid other, lesser, lurking creatures.

Mike is a veteran who attended college on the new GI Bill. When he walked into my office, I knew something was wrong.

When black theologians focused on nontraditional and extra-Christian sources, white theologians had an excuse to ignore them. Not anymore.

Why are there 45,000 young adults in Fargo-Moorhead with no connection to a church? It's not a supply-side issue; there's simply no demand.