Debra Dean Murphy is assistant professor of religion at West Virginia Wesleyan College and author of Teaching That Transforms: Worship as the Heart of Christian Education (Wipf and Stock). She blogs at Intersections, part of the CCblogs network.
By all accounts Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is a remarkable
woman: A respected, conciliatory colleague in the contentious House of
Representatives long before the tragic shooting in Tucson; a hardworking
politician deeply committed to the concerns of her constituents
(which is why she was in a suburban parking lot that fateful Saturday
morning); a supportive spouse
Whenever I attend Catholic mass during Advent, as I did last weekend,
I’m always struck by how it is simply assumed—how it’s a liturgical .
. . no, an ontological given—that Christmas is nowhere yet in sight.
Books
The Cross and the Lynching Tree
By James Cone
Breathing Under Water
Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
By Richard Rohr
Being about Borders
A Christian Anthropology of Difference
By Michele Saracino
Working with Words
On Learning to Speak Christian
By Stanley Hauerwas
A Public Faith
How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good
The Cross and the Lynching Tree, by James H. Cone. "Black body swinging in the Southern breeze," sang Billie Holliday in "Strange Fruit." Cone sets the Romans' preferred apparatus of torture and death beside the spectacle lynchings of America's shameful past.
In 1992 political strategist James Carville coined the catchphrase that
won Bill Clinton the presidency: “It’s the economy, stupid.” Clinton
made good on his word to address the deficit and high unemployment and
through both skill and luck presided over unprecedented economic growth and prosperity.
