Features
The power of being with: Jesus model for ministry
Imagine you're walking through a big city and you see a homeless person. You have several options.
Reversal: Essays by readers
In response to our request for essays on reversal, we received many compelling reflections. Here is a selection.
A preacher’s anxiety: Between panic and pride
After I preach, I want to relive the moment over and over, soaring away on an ego-driven high. Beforehand, I hide in the bathroom.
Ephemera: Notes from the farm
This spring, I didn't find any morels in the woods around my house. But I did find a lot of other things.
Manufactured disruption: Why we keep checking our phones
We seem to always want something—anything—to happen. This has implications for the life of prayer.
Books
The Rebirthing of God, by John Philip Newell
For nonbelievers, John Philip Newell's new book might serve as an introduction to Christianity at its mildest and least challenging.
We Know How This Ends, by Bruce H. Kramer with Cathy Wurzer
Bruce Kramer was a dean and professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, a passionate lover of music, and part-time choir director at his Methodist church....
Restless Empire, by Ian Barnes
This beautiful book tells the story of Russia through maps, beginning with the Slavic migrations from 900 to 500 BCE and ending with what the author calls the “Shadow Empire” of the Russian Federa...
Faith in ferment
Whatever its connotations, medieval represents half the Christian story to date. Kevin Madigan provides an excellent look at these long centuries.
How (Not) to Be Secular, by James K. A. Smith
Jamie Smith has written a string of smart books that explain the significance of contemporary theory for Christian life and ministry. His new field guide to Charles Taylor may be his best.
Departments
The Beheading of St. John the Baptist, by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1608
Caravaggio (1571–1610) depicted the beheading of St. John the Baptist for the oratory chapel dedicated to the same subject in the Cathedral of St. John in Valletta on the island of Malta....
Where issues have faces
The mainline has long congratulated itself for being prophetic because it's good at voting for progressive agendas. But change happens at the local level.
Church with a clean slate
"Co-creating is a lot of fun," says Jenn DiFrancesco. She and her Slate Project colleagues don’t show the same sort of weariness church planters often display a couple years in.
Rhythm of preaching
What I miss most is not the preaching itself but the preparing, the rhythm, the demand, and the discipline.
Testing, testing
This has been the spring of discontent over standardized testing. Unfortunately, this has been closely tied to resistance to the Common Core standards.
Funny girls
Watching Inside Amy Schumer or Broad City, you might conclude that sex is all young women think about. There is something refreshing about this.
News
Edward T. Chambers, faith-based organizer, dies at 85: People
Edward T. Chambers, longtime executive director of the Industrial Areas Foundation, died on April 26 in Kilcoe, Ireland. He was 85 and had advanced Alzheimer’s disease, according to the IAF....
James Ernest named editor in chief of Eerdmans: People
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has hired James Ernest as editor in chief....
Why the Rohingya Muslims are fleeing Myanmar
An estimated 800,000 Rohingya Muslims live in squalor in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State. But that number has been falling fast as thousands flee by land and sea in search of better lives and basic survival....
India’s Christians see rise in attacks against them
Each day, children on their way to Mount Carmel School in New Delhi pass through gates under the watch of armed security guards and city police officers after a nearby Catholic convent and school were broken into....
Harrowing voyage for Rohingya Muslims
(The Christian Science Monitor) Last October, Mohammad Idiris put himself in the hands of human traffickers in Myanmar....
Phyllis Tickle faces death as she enjoys life: ‘Dying is my next career’
Phyllis Tickle has written more widely about the contours of American faith and spirituality than most in the past generation. And now, at 81, she’s working on her own final chapter....
Two pastors in Sudan face death penalty
Two Christian pastors have been jailed and face a possible death sentence in Sudan....
John M. Templeton Jr., philanthropist, dies at 75
John M. Templeton Jr., 75, president and chairman of the Templeton Foundation, died May 16 at his home in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania....
At luxurious rehab center, a Saudi cure for extremism
(The Christian Science Monitor) At the Mohammad bin Naif Counseling and Care Center, some 250 patients have daily access to art therapy, water aerobics classes, ping-pong, Jacuzzis, a...
French rabbi asks questions others hesitate to pose about Jews and Muslims
(The Christian Science Monitor) Michel Serfaty, a French rabbi, serves a congregation in Ris-Orangis, south of Paris....
Medieval prayer wheel presents a mystery to scholars
The directions are written on 1,035-year-old vellum: “The Order of the Diagram Written Here Teaches the Return Home.” Care to play?...
Lectionary
July 5, 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Mark 6:1-13
As Jesus prepares to send the Twelve, his experience of failure seems to color his instructions.
June 28, 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Mark 5:21-43
Two people in great distress do what a third, the Gerasene demoniac, has already done: they interrupt and rearrange Jesus’ day.