Features
Tender ministry
Finally, Mom put the phone down. She took a large basin and placed our nicest guest towels in it. "Carol!" she yelled. "Let's go!"
It’s All True, by Sylvie Lewis
This singer-songwriter with a breathy tenor-alto takes a successful chance on the opening track, “Dylan’s Arms.” As spare guitar meets lush, multilayered vocals, Lewis offers a starry-eyed ode to the master songwriter (“He talks to everyone, but he sings to me, to me, to me”). “Kindness” gains an alluring gilding from ukulele and reverb-drenched slide guitar, and the ukulele appears again on the life-is-too-short shuffle “Give Me the Roses Now.”
The good grain: Restoring wild rice in the North
Wild rice is like maple syrup or morel mushrooms: producers need customers who know the real thing and are willing to pay more for it.
Soup night at the bar: The rules are simple
Staring down the barrel of another Chicago winter at age 40, I was a little freaked. Then I started to serve soup.
I’m Just Dead I’m Not Gone, by James Luther Dickinson and the North Mississippi Allstars
In his storied career, Jim Dickinson produced some of rock’s greatest acts (Big Star, the Replacements). Here his sons Luther and Cody, who gained fame as the North Mississippi Allstars, accompany him in a live gig recorded three years before his death in 2009.
Worship without walls
Public ritual might be construed as a benign relic, as imperialism, or as marketing. Or it might be seen as a form of pilgrimage.
That’s Why God Made the Radio, by The Beach Boys
The new Beach Boys record doesn't always work, but when it does it dials in the group's age of innocence, filtered through years of experience.
Providers as employers
Ted Goins, president and CEO of Lutheran Services Carolinas, spends a lot of time focused on the Affordable Care Act’s regulations for providers of nursing care. But the health-care reform law also affects LSC is another way: as an employer.
Health care up close: What else the Affordable Care Act does
Most people know only about the ACA's consumer-focused elements. Faith-based care providers are preparing for the law's other provisions as well.
Long Lost Ghosts, by Emily Hurd
Working with producer John Abbey (who has played with Daniel Lanois and Ray Davies), Emily Hurd turns in a soulful, tender album that recalls the best of Lucinda Williams and Shawn Colvin.
Church, state and punk: The Pussy Riot protest
Pussy Riot became a cause célèbre for the Russian opposition and its Western supporters. Many Russian Orthodox believers saw things differently.
Elephant King, by Trace Bundy
Named “Most Promising New Talent” of 2008 by Acoustic Guitar magazine, Trace Bundy has been impressing audiences with his playing, which will please fans of Phil Keaggy, Michael Hedges and Laurence Juber.
Books
Questing for Understanding, by David B. Burrell
Burrell’s memoir is driven by Jung’s observation that the story of our lives is the story of our times, and it is our task to see how that is the case.
Noise level
"Noise is not the most important problem in the world," Garret Keizer begins. But he makes a robust case for noise's far-reaching effects.
The New Religious Intolerance, by Martha C. Nussbaum
In The Clash Within, Martha Nussbaum explored the capacity to entertain the other as key to a democratic society. Now she considers angry resistance to the other, bringing her usual erudite analysis and intense moral passion.
Beyond Our Means, by Sheldon Garon
Sheldon Garon contends that Americans lack moral teaching on wealth, public policies that encourage saving, and a cultural ethos that nurtures thrift.
Turn Here Sweet Corn, by Atina Diffley
Atina Diffley and her husband are organic farmers in Minnesota. Her book contains three stories in one.
Departments
Patriarchs of Babylon
In the ninth century, Timothy I was a global statesman. In the 20th, Raphael Bidawid led a tiny denomination in the paranoid Iraq of Saddam Hussein.
Courage 3.0 and King
In the paintings of Tim Okamura, a Canadian artist working in Brooklyn, the hip-hop urban landscape becomes part of a contemporary icon. An urban setting that seems neglected, empty, disruptive or marginal frames the “sainting” of people....
Breaking Bad
Each time Walter White gets away with something, I can't help cheering him on—while also shuddering at his depravity and my own complicity.
Synthetic immortality
Neuroscientist Kenneth Hayworth is opposed to death, and he thinks he has a solution.
Presidential fixation
The primary problem with American political culture is that almost all of our scrutiny goes to the human beings running for president.
News
Priest quits TV show after comments on sex abuse
Benedict Groeschel, a well-known Catholic author and television personality, has given up his longtime spot on the conservative cable network EWTN following comments in which he appeared to defend clergy who abuse children and also to blame some o...
Now official: Mormons may drink Coke, Pepsi
Perhaps reporters, bloggers, outsiders and even many Mormons will now acknowledge that the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not forbid drinking cola....
‘God talk’ and the Democrats
God was out and now God is in. And Jerusalem wasn’t the capital of Israel and now it is. The accusations that God had been “purged” from the Democrats’ national platform seemed too much for the party to bear....
Released: Pastor in Iran, teen in Pakistan
Religious rights activists are hailing the release of an Iranian pastor accused of apostasy and a Pakistani girl who was charged with blasphemy....
Leader of Nuns on the Bus calls GOP budget immoral
Sister Simone Campbell, who led the summertime Nuns on the Bus tour for social justice, called the GOP budget plan “immoral” in a spirited speech at the Democratic National Convention....
Democrats add support for gay marriage to platform
On the night the Democrats became the first major U.S. political party to endorse gay marriage, some convention delegates remembered how it used to be—back in the days when, as one said, “you’re scared because it’s not OK to be who you are.”...
Adventists press issue of women’s ordination
Two U.S. regional groups of the Seventh-day Adventist Church have women pastors and are moving faster than the worldwide church on the issue....
Lectionary
Sunday, October 14, 2012: Psalm 22:1-15
The psalmist knows loneliness. Even the most faithful believers have anguished over the fear that somehow God is not listening to their cries.