Christian interest in the sabbath has focused on the family, the home, and the church. Our culture’s assault on leisure, however, extends beyond Sunday.
Illinois is in dreadful shape, with huge debt and underfunded pension liabilities. In the gubernatorial campaign, the ads were focused elsewhere.
In politics, meeting in the middle is often a useful and necessary thing. But it isn’t itself an adequate ethical yardstick.
The collar says something to parishioner and stranger alike: while this doesn’t have to be the most important conversation of your life, it can be.
Like it or not, the world’s religious landscape owes much to the long history of European imperialism. But the story of empire and missions is more complex than we might assume.
No one likes the thought of an angry God. Yet God’s wrath pops up all over the Bible, including in this week’s Advent readings. Is there anything redemptive about an angry God?
The Bible uses words like holy more than words like love. Yet holiness is a murky word. It evokes several ideas.
Mapping Exile and Return, by Alain Epp Weaver
Alain Epp Weaver offers a new conceptual bridge to explain the Israel/Palestine conflict to U.S. readers and to suggest a way forward.
Gold, by Barbara Crooker
Barbara Crooker enters the shades and brush strokes of daily life with such reverence that readers want to take notice, live better, and die better.
Narcissism is normal
David McCullough Jr.’s view of narcissism is a familiar one among the professional classes. As an angle on our age, Elizabeth Lunbeck finds it blinding.
Doctrine’s many lives
Christine Helmer’s important new book has an unusual literary feature: its titular character is killed off not once, but twice.
True and Holy, by Leo D. Lefebure
Engagement in serious, respectful conversation with other religious traditions is important and urgent. Leo Lefebure details why it’s also difficult.
Sex in the lab
On Masters of Sex, the wired-up naked bodies are not nearly as titillating as the melodramas that unfold when the characters are fully clothed.
The Boat That Carries Us, Peter Himmelman
Peter Himmelman is a rock ’n’ roll anomaly: an observant Jew who has long declined to play any shows on the sabbath. But this serious commitment to his faith gives his songs heft. He’s addressed brokenness, healing, and humility in songs such as “Impermanent Things” and “Mission of My Soul.” And Himmelman has a knack for melding lyrical complexity with catchy melody.