Features
Evolution and sacrifice: Cooperation as a scientific principle
Followers of the media furor about evolution and God imagine that they have to choose between Darwinian theory and belief in divine providence. The most vociferous current contestants in this debate are either atheistic supporters of evolutionary theory or Christian supporters of the riposte position known as intelligent design. I suggest that there is a way to avoid this false disjunction altogether. New discoveries about the phenomenon known to evolutionary theorists as cooperation give us fresh reasons to regard evolutionary theory and classic Christian theism as entirely compatible—indeed, richly and convincingly so.
Julie and Julia
The title of Nora Ephron’s Julie and Julia equalizes its two plots: there is one about how Julia Child came to publish Mastering the Art of French Cooking and thereby alter the American palate, and there is one about Julie Powell’s efforts four decades later to cook her way through Child’s cookbook. But in truth these stories aren’t remotely on the same footing.
Books
A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop
In May 2002, Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee was outed as homosexual by Paul Marcoux, a man he had fallen...
Nightwatch/Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
That an adult convert to a religious community of plain people w...
Olive Kitteridge
Many of the main characters in Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel are old, and like aging itself, this book is not for wimps....
Too Much Happiness: Stories
My favorite writer isn’t for everybody. Or maybe she is....
Take and read
What happens when a superb scholar who studies both North American religious history and global...
Take and read
A past president of Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, Weeks locates the often denigrated work of church administrat...
Big-box values
The question of th...
The Future of Faith
Harvey Cox is nothing if not nimble....
The Eucharist and Ecumenism: Let Us Keep the Feast
We Christians are a people divided by what unites us....
5 essential books on John Calvin
How best to understand Calvin on the 500th anniversary of his birth?...
Social Ethics in the Making: Interpreting an American Tradition
Is Christianity relevant?...
5 essential books on Paul
In addition to its roundup of book reviews, the Century's fall books issue features works that guest critics consider to be essential reading on three topics: John Calvin, Paul and preaching. A. Katherine Grieb's essential books on Paul are: Paul and His Letters (second edition), The Writings of St. Paul, Our Mother Saint Paul, Rereading Paul Together: Protestant and Catholic Perspectives on Justification, and A Shorter Commentary on Romans. Read her comments here.
Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine
On the face of it, it does not seem difficult to state the contradictions that beset a doctrine of predestination....
7 essential books for preaching
My favorite book on the theology of preaching—which helps me remember what I’m doing and why—is the first one I e...
The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public
When I first moved to one of California’s beautiful seaside cities, a friend from a less self-consciously glamorous part of the country asked ...
Take and read
Few biblical scholars at work today combine Allison’s extensive learning, personal modesty and refreshing honesty....
Departments
Words and miracles: Realities outside the text
I have a friend who was a college professor before she made the brave decision to leave the security of academia and strike out on her own as a writer....
Time's up: Jimmy Carter is on to something
Was former president Jimmy Carter identifying the elephant in the room or seeing a phantom when he charged that much of the opposition to President Obama’s health-care reform is motivated by racism?...
Boldly humble: And humbly bold
"What causes you to become discouraged?” I asked a visitor from eastern Congo who started a university in that country a few years ago....
Tools of the trade: A writer's necessities
Avoid haphazard writing materials. A pedantic adherence to certain papers, pens, inks is beneficial. No luxury, but an abundance of these utensils is indispensable....
News
Coalition seeks repeal of grant memo allowing Christians-only hiring: Asks Obama administration to review Bush policy
Dozens of legal and religious groups have asked Attorney General Eric Holder to rescind a Bush-era memorandum that they believe wrongly permitted a religious charity to receive federal grant money despite its policy of hiring only Christians....
Convicted felon loses bid to regain top Baptist post: National Baptist Convention chooses Julius Scruggs instead
Despite a highly publicized effort to regain the presidency of the nation’s largest African-American Baptist denomination, disgraced pastor Henry Lyons overwhelmingly lost his election bid last month....
On the left and right, activists are driven by religious convictions: Strong convictions, different positions
Long-held assumptions about religious activists on the left and right have been confirmed in a new 40-page report issued in mid-September: the only thing both sides seem to have in common is that faith is a big part of their lives—bigger than amon...
Study finds clergy sexual misconduct widespread: Several themes emerge
In any given congregation with 400 adult members, seven women on average have been victims of clergy sexual misconduct since they turned 18, a new national study reveals....
'Values voters' see little value in medical reform: "It's not the government's job"
Health-care reform may be Priority No. 1 in Congress and at the White House, but for the 1,825 religious conservatives who gathered in Washington for the annual Values Voter Summit in September, the subject was barely on their radar screen....
Century Marks
God for a change: The Shona people of Zimbabwe have many names for God. Janice McLaughlin's favorite is Chipindikure, which means "the One who turns things upside down." It comes from the word kupinduka, which means "to be uprooted." Says McLaughlin, a longtime Maryknoll missionary: "What an amazing concept to explain God's presence in the often unwanted and unplanned changes that happen to us throughout our lives" (Ostriches, Dung Beetles, and Other Spiritual Masters, Orbis).
People
Moni Basu, a former writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has won the top two prizes, for reporting and writing, from the Religion Newswriters Association....
Retired army officer will be Nigeria's new primate: Orogodo Okoh to succeed Peter Akinola
The Church of Nigeria has chosen a 57-year-old retired lieutenant colonel from the Nigerian army, Archbishop Nicholas Orogodo Okoh, as its new primate to lead some 20 million Anglicans in the west African country....
Secularist campus groups doubled in past two years: According to the Secular Student Alliance
The number of atheist or agnostic student groups on U.S. campuses has more than doubled in the past two years—from 80 to 162—according to the Secular Student Alliance (SSA), the national organization for the secular student movement....
Lectionary
What Bartimaeus wanted (Mark 10:46-52)
We see in Bartimaeus's story the same basic elements that are present in the calling of Jesus’ first disciples.