Features
How to follow the leader: Five habits of healthy congregations
Following doesn't command the interest that leading does. But following is crucial.
Jeremiah's vexing task
The thing about serving as a prophet is that you are forever stuck between what God wants and what the people want.
Peer power: The promise of clergy support groups
When clergy
meet regularly in a "community of practice," they find that trust develops, anxieties diminish,
and challenges turn into occasions for learning.
A room of our own
Impulsively, I e-mailed three
other clergywomen and invited them to participate in a
writing group. Their responses came
quickly and enthusiastically: Yes. I'm in. I need this.
Prayer concern: Remembering all the victims of war
Each week my church includes a prayer for the families of American soldiers who have died. As the names are read, I try to hold them in prayer. But I have wrestled with these prayers.
Like Crazy
Like Crazy is a love story about an American boy (Anton Yelchin)
and an English girl (Felicity Jones) who meet in their final year of
college in Los Angeles, fall in love and opt to spend the summer
together in the States before she returns to London.
Table manners: Unexpected grace at communion
In Bosnia, I was reminded that the God who shows up at communion is a God who brazenly seeks us out of the crowd.
"Living my truth" United Methodist pastor Amy DeLong: United Methodist pastor Amy DeLong
"If the bishop admits to knowing that I was gay, then she gets in trouble. The system is set up so that truth will not be told."
Books
Ghosts of Afghanistan, by Jonathan Steele
Steele, a reporter and columnist for the Guardian newspaper, has covered Afghanistan since the former Soviet Union's occupation in the 1980s....
Lutheran Slogans, by Robert W. Jenson
Slogans are necessary, Jenson says, both for practical reasons (we need shortcuts in arguments) and rhetorical ones (we need vivid ways of summing up a position). But problems arise when slogans become "untethered from the complex of ideas and practices which they once evoked."
Neither Calendar nor Clock, by Piet J. Naudé
In the long struggle for freedom in South Africa, parts of the church played a major role, even as other parts colluded with the apartheid regime. Few actions in that struggle were more important than the Belhar Confession.
Aftershocks
Paul Farmer has a keen sense of the tendency to portray
Haitians as helpless victims. This is well evident in his poignant
chronicle of the year that began with the January 2010 earthquake.
A Little History of Philosophy, by Nigel Warburton
Nigel Warburton is a senior lecturer for Britain's Open University, a
service originated by the BBC to provide education via television to
adults who had not gone on to higher education. A Little History of Philosophy
is focused on that audience and on anyone else who knows little about
philosophy except that it is, as Warburton says, "impenetrable and
obscure."
Departments
Feedback frenzy
Everyone wants my opinion these days: airlines, hotels, Amazon. How healthy can it be to think of life as a series of episodes to rate up or down?
Myopia of the market
Since the years of Reagan and Thatcher, we have heard a steady drumbeat about the limitations of government. But what about the limitations of the free market?
Liturgical Year Banners
These six banners from St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in Fort Worth, Texas, preview the Christian year. Gjelten Stone says, "I paint canvas with acrylic washes and add image transfer, drawing, and painting....
Pathway to citizenship
Newt Gingrich has suggested that undocumented immigrants who are family-loving, hardworking, tax-paying, churchgoing and deeply rooted should stay here. This is pretty much the typical immigrant.
News
Public image worries SBC, pleases United Methodists
A task force that studied whether the nationwide Southern Baptist Convention should drop its regional name tag may have encouraged advocates for change after its own polling agency showed high negative responses to "Southern Baptist." P...
Climate talks offer no help to poor nations
United Nations climate talks achieved minimal success in late 2011, say Christian leaders and activists, agreeing with environmentalists and other experts who claim the outcome at Durban, South Africa, did too little to respond to the impact of cl...
Can there be too much ‘Tebowing’?
Thanks to Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, sports and religion
have become the topic du jour. Arguments over Tebow's path to the Hall
of Fame can be waged, but it's clear that his name is a rarity: the...
Russian Orthodox join election fraud protests
After a week of mounting protest over alleged fraud in Russia's
parliamentary election, the Russian Orthodox Church has called for
stricter control over the election process—evidence of the extent to...
Gingrich’s rhetoric stirs GOP’s Jewish activists
GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich ignited an audience of
Republican Jewish activists in Washington by promising to move the U.S.
embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And he was just getting started....
Mainline moves to trim bureaucracy
A list of the Episcopal Church's 75 commissions, committees,
agencies and boards spilled over eight PowerPoint slides during a recent
presentation by its new chief operating officer, Bishop Stacy Sauls. By...
U.S., Cuban church leaders seek normalized relations
Church leaders from ecumenical councils in the U.S. and Cuba wrapped
up a five-day meeting in Havana on December 2 with a call for
"normalized relations" between the two countries. A joint statement said...
Humanitarian concerns stall cluster bomb accord
Religious leaders and disarmament campaigners hailed the decision in
Geneva by 50 countries to derail a proposal backed by the United States,
Russia, China, India and Israel to create a new global accord on...
George Harrison as theological rock star
As the lead guitarist of the world's preeminent rock band and a
prolific song writer, the Beatles' George Harrison has secured his place
in pop culture history. But his greatest legacy may be the way his...
Lectionary
Sunday, January 22, 2012: Jonah 3:1–5, 10; Mark 1:14–20
Simon and Andrew immediately left their nets and followed. If only we could respond so quickly.
Sunday, January 15, 2012: 1 Samuel 3:1–10, (11–20); John 1:43–51
I often feel that my whole time in ministry has been one when the word of the Lord is rare and visions not widespread.