Features
Tell My Sister, by Kate & Anna McGarrigle
The McGarrigle sisters (Kate died of sarcoma last year) were more successful in their native Canada than in the States, but they were deeply admired by those who covered their songs: Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Maria Muldaur, Kate's son Rufus Wainwright.
Sarah’s Key
Sarah's Key is culled from a popular novel (by Tatiana de Rosnay)
set during the Holocaust and the Nazi occupation of France. The main
character, an American magazine writer (Kristin Scott Thomas) living
in Paris, discovers that her husband's family acquired their home after
the Jews who once lived there were sent to an abandoned stadium, where
they endured three hellish days before the Nazis transported them to the
camps.
Fall books: Reviews
Our fall books issue's reviews include Walter Brueggemann on Peter Ochs, Robert Bellah on Parker Palmer, Shirley Showalter on Leymah Gbowee and others.
Night of Hunters, by Tori Amos
While it's hard to imagine many pop artists signing up to
write a song cycle based on the history of classical music, for
Amos—whom Deutsche Grammophon approached with this idea—the project
seems almost inevitable.
The Help
In The Help, set during the civil rights era, an aspiring
journalist decides to write a book about the African-American domestics
in the small Mississippi town where she grew up. The movie, adapted by
Tate Taylor from Kathryn Stockett's best seller, is a glossy Hollywood
potboiler that uses a serious theme and historical context as cover.
Take & read: Fall books
Our fall books issue includes the
following annotated lists of top new titles: New Testament, practical theology and world Christianity/American religion.
4x4, by Works Progress Administration
Works Progress Administration is a loose collective of a supergroup, primarily a collaboration between Glen Phillips and Sean Watkins.
C’mon, by Low
The usually pejorative term slowcore was coined to describe Low's general minimalism and especially the glacial pace at which the Duluth, Minnesota, trio's songs develop. But patient listeners have always been rewarded with warm guitar sounds, memorable tunes and sweet harmony.
Essential books
Our fall books issue includes annotated lists of top titles on the book of Job, atonement and children's ministry.
Pipeline to disaster: Obama and the Alberta tar sands
When news came out that Obama would get to
approve or block a pipeline linking Texas
refineries to the tar sands of Alberta, it was clear that it was time for
more than words.
We Are Rising, by Son Lux
Earlier this year, NPR's All Songs Considered solicited Ryan Lott, aka Son Lux, for an experiment: could he write and record an album in one month? Lott agreed.
Books
Healing the Heart of Democracy, by Parker J. Palmer
The title of Parker Palmer's book suggests that when he uses the words democracy and politics he is concerned with something much more than everyday politics in a society tha...
Food and Faith, by Norman Wirzba
Pastors have long known that there is more going on with food and eating than the mere filling of the stomach....
Rescuing Regina, by Josephe Marie Flynn
This book should be made into a movie. As a book, the story has several strikes against it. The central character is not well known outside Milwaukee....
Mightier Than the Sword, by David S. Reynolds
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin stands alongside Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, Thomas Paine's Common Sense and Frederick Douglass's Narrative...
The Deaths of Others, by John Tirman
Friedrich Nietzsche observed that the human capacity to forget is not solely the result of inertia: "It is rather an active and in the strictest sense positive faculty of repression." According to ...
Another Reformation, by Peter Ochs
The interface of Jewish and Christian theology has always been vexing. Partly this is because of the intrinsically incommensurate realities of the two faiths....
The Spiritual-Industrial Complex and God-Fearing and Free
For those of us who spent our grammar school days diving beneath school desks in the civil defense drills of the 1950s, the link between faith and the cold war was pretty obvious....
A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan's novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a clutch of other awards this year....
Irma Voth, by Miriam Toews
Many, many things happen in Miriam Toews's slim new novel—drug dealing, a shotgun wedding, filmmaking, filicide, teenagers running away, political protests—and all of them happen in a year of the l...
Mighty Be Our Powers, by Leymah Gbowee
Leymah Gbowee's tranquil, relatively privileged life as a 17-year-old university student exploded in 1990 when war broke out in her homeland, the West African nation of Liberia....
World Christianity & American religion
An annotated list of top new titles.
Practical theology
An annotated list of top new titles.
New Testament
An annotated list by Beverly Roberts Gaventa.
The book of Job
An annotated list of top titles on the book of Job.
Atonement
An annotated list of top titles on atonement.
Children’s ministry
An annotated list of top titles on children's ministry.
Departments
Virtues of knowing
The pastor was prepared for questions about the Transfiguration. Instead, one first grader asked, "what does 'obviously' mean?"
Would Jesus love football?
It's not primarily the financially shady elements that make me
ambivalent about my favorite sport. It's the sometimes dangerous levels
of violence.
Each Blade of Grass
Each blade of grass, ev'ry wing that soars, the waves that sweep acrossa distant shore, make full the circle of God. —Keri Wehlander...
Good investments
The use of clean energy sources is growing, but unless those sources
become cheaper and more efficient, they won't put a dent in the rise in
carbon emissions.
News
Hungary returns churches, but most are in bad shape
A Hungarian church leader has welcomed the fulfillment of state pledges to restore church properties to religious communities six decades after they were confiscated by the country's communist regime....
‘Protestant ethic’ still sways dreams of wealth
Back in 1905, Max Weber's landmark treatise, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, argued that a Calvinist belief in God's plan for the saved was crucial to the rise of capitalism because it inspired individuals to work ...
UMC bishops warned of clergy planning to bless gay unions
A United Methodist group of large-church pastors, joined by hundreds of petition-signing clergy and laity, are urging the denomination's bishops to issue a collective warning to some 900 "defiant" clergy who have declared their intention to bless ...
Papal trip disappointing to German Protestants
Pope Benedict xvi's recent visit to Germany featured an ecumenical
worship service in the town of Erfurt that was meant to reach out to
German Protestants, but for many it felt like a missed opportunity....
Bishop claims Iran visit helped to release hikers
Washington, D.C., September 22 (ENInews)--The 21 September release of
U.S. hikers Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal from an Iranian prison "affirms
the importance of the role of religious dialogue and its end product in
this case, public diplomacy, as we seek ways to define common ground
between our two countries," said Episcopal Diocese of Washington Bishop
John Chane, who returned from a weeklong visit to Iran on 19 September.
Conservative Christians rush to Rick Perry’s side
From media mavens to grassroots activists, conservative Christian
leaders have been heaping praise on presidential candidate Rick Perry,
an early but important show of support from a vital GOP constituency....
Southern Baptist leader suggests name change
Does the Southern Baptist Convention need a new name? The president
of the nation's largest Protestant denomination, Bryant Wright, who is
also a pastor in Marietta, Georgia, says the idea should be explored...
Atheists target clergy’s tax break for housing
A long-standing tax break for clergy and other "ministers of the
gospel" is facing the lastest in a string of challenges in federal
court. The Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation filed suit...
Atheists, mostly male, show sexist side
Rebecca Watson meant it as a funny story, almost an aside. In a video
blog, the popular skeptic blogger recalled a man following her into an
empty elevator and inviting her up to his room after she spoke about...