Features
Confirmed and sent out: Fostering encounters with God
Encounters with God happen, and they are known by their liberating effects. How can confirmation class support such encounters?
Inside the refugee city: Anthropologist Rahul Oka on Kakuma, Kenya
"Maybe 5 percent of refugees are ever resettled. Meanwhile, human life is always more than survival."
The sting of spring: Notes from the farm
Harvesting wild greens always returns me to our species' hunter-gatherer roots. Not so long ago, this is what people did the world over.
Thirsty in Detroit: Water shutoffs and baptismal witness
At St. Peter's, the font beckons Detroiters to wade into freedom—while the bottled water around it brings to mind the principalities and powers.
Books
Selling the Reformation
Luther understood the “aesthetics of the book” but not the economics of the book. He never made a pfennig from his publications.
Beethoven for a Later Age, by Edward Dusinberre
The sacred is experienced in liminal spaces where profound silence happens. But behind the silence is activity.
Transformed by Spirit-Chi
The Spirit’s loving, life-giving, transformative power—Divine Eros—connects us, moves within us, and can heal the wounds of our division.
The Woman, the Hour, and the Garden, by Addison Hodges Hart
Hart’s vision is at once allegorical, moral, and eschatological. Christ, married to the church, draws us into deeper life with God.
Shadows of a saint
Williams was at once theologian, mystic, poet, novelist, editor, playwright, and critic, not to mention (possibly) a living Anglican saint.
The morality of drone warfare
How might Christian communities take up war-making and peacemaking as acts of discipleship?
Revaluing care
The social value we give to caring for other people is not simply a women’s issue: it concerns men, women, and the whole society’s common good.
Departments
Generation to generation
Congregations often cater to those who show up and pay the bills. But as Jesus said, we need new wineskins to hold new wine.
Visitation, by Jacopo Pontormo (1494–1557)
Jacopo Pontormo painted the Visitation (1514–16) for the Church of the Annunciation in Florence, Italy, where the fresco remains. The scene depicts the encounter between Mary and Elizabeth (Luke 1:39–45)....
Other people’s faith in you
You knew about weakness before you were ordained. Yet something made you get out of the boat and try to walk.
Repeat testimony
In an era of partisan politics, it's difficult to tell the truth. The complaints about Confirmation reveal a lack of progress.
Grading our work
After sharing laudatory remarks about Nai-Wang Kwok, the YDS dean invited him to respond. I have thought a lot about the three sentences Kwok said before he sat down again.
The price of brutality
No charges were filed against the police officer who killed Tamir Rice. But others are being held responsible: taxpayers.
News
Filipino United Methodists give shelter amid violence against protesting farmers
A United Methodist church compound in the Philippines gave sanctuary to 4,000 farmers and indigenous people for more than a week after a recent protest for food relief turned deadly....
Manas Buthelezi, South African theologian, dies at 81
Manas Buthelezi, a Lutheran bishop in South Africa and one of the great African theologians of the 20th century, died April 20 at age 81....
Lutheran seminaries will merge instead of launching a new school
Two Pennsylvania Lutheran seminaries have dropped plans to dissolve both schools and start a new one as they navigate hurdles in their quest to forge a new institution....
Daniel Berrigan, anti-war priest, dies at 94
Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest and herald of the Catholic social justice movement, died April 30 at age 94....
Refugees tell of violence, political strife in Burundi
(The Christian Science Monitor) Why the militia came for Nolasque Nduwimana, a history teacher at a girls’ Catholic boarding school in Burundi, was obvious....
Theology faculties adapt Islam for Germany
While Germany’s politicians are loudly debating whether Islam is compatible with democracy, five of its state universities are quietly developing new Islamic theology faculties that are striving to ensure that it is....
Harriet Tubman's image to be placed on $20 bill
Harriet Tubman will be depicted on the front of the $20 bill, the Treasury Department announced April 20....
Trending conservative, Poland considers tighter abortion laws
(The Christian Science Monitor) At first glance, Poland’s heated debate over a proposed total ban on abortion may seem familiar....
Courts in Brazil use clergy to mediate conflicts
A pioneering mediation program in Brazil is helping the judicial system reduce a backlog of cases overloading the country’s courts by getting religious leaders involved in resolving conflicts between families and neighbors....
Lectionary
June 12, 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Luke 7:36-8:3
When I read this week’s passage from Luke, I take an aerial view. My perspective shifts from the disciples to Jesus, then to Simon the Pharisee, then to the bystanders, and finally to the woman who washes Jesus’ feet.
June 5, 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Luke 7:11-17
In Luke’s Gospel, many of Jesus’ encounters with people are described in terms of whether or not they have faith. Yet this week’s story of the widow of Nain stands in contrast: the person in need never asks for help.