In response to our request for essays on mentors, we received many compelling reflections. Here is a selection.
When the church was under siege, passing the peace was important to members meeting in secret. Today, it’s a part of the service I dread.
Ministry is an undertaking of the entire church. Ministers flourish when they share their experience and reflect on it with others.
Literary belief is always metaphorical, not actual. What about religious belief?
Alec Reid’s heroic story sounds as if it comes from a Catholic suspense novel. But it really did happen—in Belfast in 1988.
At-Risk, by Amina Gautier
The power of Amina Gautier’s stories is in the way they portray the undertow of danger that pulls at African American youth in a Brooklyn housing project.
Holding on and letting go
The aging-parent memoir is a crowded genre. Still, I was eager to read Jeanne Murray Walker’s account of her mother’s last years. I wasn’t disappointed.
Theology for Liberal Protestants, by Douglas F. Ottati
The genius of Doug Ottati’s work is that he illuminates ways that theology is a source for rather than an obstacle to piety and practical living.
In the holiday movie blitz, one live wire unites two very different films: Christian Bale, who plays the lead in both Out of the Furnace and American Hustle.