Features
A global identity: Can United Methodism restructure itself?
Is the United Methodist Church an American denomination with extensions overseas? Or is it a worldwide communion?
New clergy, new churches: Church planting as a first call
Emily Scott had an idea: what if young adults got together for a weekly agape feast? Soon St. Lydia’s was born--but Scott was not ordained.
Prayer is God's work: Ruth Burrows, Carmelite sister
“There is the danger of protecting ourselves from God by striving to be passive. The ‘I’ is very active in its attempt to surrender.”
The Woman in Black
The Gothic The Woman in Black, based on a Susan Hill novel and set in turn-of-the-century England, is so terrifying that it feels like a classic of its type.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
It takes a tremendous amount of delicacy and tact to pull off a movie
about 9/11 without making the audience feel it's been strong-armed.
Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, based on the Jonathan Safran Foer novel of the same name, puts you through the wringer.
Teen hero: Life and death in The Hunger Games
While Suzanne Collins’s trilogy does not have overt Christian themes, it does offer a social vision familiar to Christians.
Books
Word Made Global, by Mark R. Gornik
Over ten years ago Andrew Walls, the renowned historian and mission theologian, with whom I was studying at Princeton Theological Seminary, mentioned that one of his students had begun researching ...
The Aesthetics of Violence in the Prophets, edited by Chris Franke and Julia M. O'Brien
Lately there has been a surge of studies variously construed as focused on "religion and violence," "the Bible and violence" or "God and violence." Most of these studies are not very helpful, for t...
Armed and dangerous
Jay Rubenstein offers a lively and well-researched history of the First Crusade. He has a gift for making thousand-year-old history both exciting and relevant.
New testaments
The Common English Bible boasts that 120 scholars worked on it. The Kingdom New Testament was written by one (brilliant) guy.
Departments
Longing for certainty
Seekers often want Christianity to be a set of ideas one knows to be true, or at least to provide a feeling of certainty.
Monkish ways
As a graduate student, my father visited the Abbey of Gethsemani. His experiences there entered him in some permanent way.
Borrowers and lenders
Last month’s bank settlement was little more than a slap on the wrist. But Americans are finding ways to hold banks accountable.
Marking Time
In Mexico's ancient city of Pátzcuaro, researchers unearthed a wall with a history dating from pre-Hispanic times (as early as 1350 AD). The markings go back to the arrival of Europeans, when the wall functioned as a calendar....
News
Twisters not random, says Calvinist preacher Piper
An author and preacher popular in Calvinist circles says it is no accident that recent killer tornadoes followed paths that ravaged some communities while others were spared....
Maryland’s Catholic governor signs bill for gay marriage
A coalition of Catholic groups that advocate gay rights in churches and society congratulated Maryland's governor after he signed a bill on March 1 making Maryland the eighth state to approve of same-gender marriage....
William Hamilton, death of God theologian, dies at 87
William Hamilton, a theologian who declared nearly a half century ago that God was dormant if not dead, was remembered at his death for the media impact made by the "death of God movement." ...
Hopes for an ‘ecumenical spring’
For years, advocates for greater unity among Christian churches have wrung their hands and talked of an "ecumenical winter." But now, ten years after leaders took the first steps toward forming the broad-based group Christian Churches Together in ...
Putin's election rekindles Orthodox Church debate
Vladimir Putin's election to a third term as Russian president has
spurred debates about civil society and church-state relations within
the Russian Orthodox Church since charges of vote fraud set off mass...
Christians make up half of the world’s migrants
Christians comprise half of the world's 214 million migrants—those
who have moved from their country of birth and are now living
permanently in a different country—a new study released March 8 has
concluded....
Belief in witchcraft fostering abuse of children
British police say they have investigated more than 80
witchcraft-based child abuse cases in the last decade and warned that
the practice is "far more prevalent" than previously believed....
Santorum’s army of homeschoolers
Strapped for cash and paid staff, Rick Santorum has enlisted a ragtag
but politically potent army to keep his campaign afloat: homeschoolers....
Mormons warned against baptizing Holocaust victims
The LDS Church's governing First Presidency has issued an unequivocal
mandate to its members: do not submit names of Jewish Holocaust victims
or celebrities for proxy baptism. Doing so could cost Mormons access to...
Breakaway Anglicans told to return property
A Virginia judge has ordered seven congregations that broke from the
Episcopal Church to return all property to the local diocese—from
valuable land to sacred chalices—by April 30. The Diocese of Virginia...
Minnesota church learns price of supporting gays
A small Minnesota church is finding out the high cost of standing up
for same-sex equality—while also receiving an unexpected lifeline from
the very people it decided to support....
Mosque study shows rapid U.S. growth in last decade
The number of mosques in America has jumped 74 percent since 2000,
and the majority of them—56 percent— espouse a less-than-literal
approach to interpreting Islam's holy texts....
Lectionary
Sunday, April 15, 2012 (1 John 1:1–2:2)
Christ was "from the beginning." In its first moment, creation had humankind, therefore meaning, implicit in it.
Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012: John 20:1–18
The risen Christ does not rebuke Mary for her error. He seems rather to enjoy the occasion of her surprise.