In response to our request for essays on the subject road, we received many compelling reflections. Here is a selection.
Efforts to avoid the term proof are mistaken—both as a reading of Aquinas and as a broader claim about whether God exists.
Local ways are rarely senseless or stupid. It's just that a new pastor likely doesn't yet understand them as the locals do.
If we're going to adopt business language for the church, we should think less about reaching a certain market and more about the nature of the product.
"Narcissists can be inspiring. Whether they are creative or destructive depends on their philosophy."
The traveler eats whatever food is placed before her; she aims to learn as much of the language as possible. A tourist sacrifices less.
Both Cruz and Trump say the U.S. needs special surveillance of Muslims. This is precisely the wrong conclusion to draw from terrorism in Europe.
Pentecost offers a vision for Europe: not one megastate or one system for everything, but a model of diversity as peace.
New church communities have sprung up across the nation. They differ in many ways, but most have one thing in common: their small size.
That Dragon, Cancer is a unique video game: it offers us the experience of our powerlessness.
In Acts comes Luke’s imaginative way to build upon ancient stories. The tongues of fire are no longer seen from afar on top of God’s mountain. And the multiplicity of languages becomes God’s vehicle for bringing salvation to the entire world.
The reading from Revelation 22 concludes the book’s resurrection songs: the baptized enjoy the fruits of the tree of life. But the tree is not merely one of the countless archetypal trees that religions and cultures everywhere have imagined.
On Ascension Day, with the readings from Luke and Acts in danger of being embalmed by archaism, the reading from Ephesians is a gift.
Hannah Arendt and Theology, by John Kiess
Balancing political realism with an openness to grace is not easy. But Arendt and Kiess propose just such a balance, so that “politics becomes the art of being born.”
Pure Christian sex?
Human sexuality is fraught, particularly when mixed with the complexities of culture, religion, patriarchy, and adolescence.
Poetic solitude
From his youth Lax experienced a love of God that would not abate, calling him toward both solitude and engagement with others.
The Finest Traditions of My Calling, by Abraham M. Nussbaum
Nussbaum, a psychiatrist who labels himself a “bad Catholic,” delves with religious fervor into the mystery of his calling to serve people who suffer. Guided by mentors like Basil of Caesarea, Hildegard of Bingen, and Stanley Hauerwas, he envisions medical care as a precious craft honed by the development of virtue.
Politics beyond party
Do we bring our preformed politics into church or does the church transform us into disciples who practice a Jesus kind of politics?
Evolution heals
Peanut allergies are rare in Africa, where children are exposed early and often to a variety of microbes that we might regard as old friends.