Features
Imagination and hope
Olga Grushin is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, The Dream Life of Sukhanov and The Line. Both grapple with the legacy of the Soviet Union and the depths of human character. Raised in Moscow, Grushin was the first Soviet citizen to graduate from a U.S. university after the cold war. She now lives in Washington, D.C.
The Head and the Heart
This new band's sound has roots in the indie-folk scene, with its moody treatments of simple chord progressions and Americana rhythms. But the larger thread here is classic pop, and The Head and the Heart offers the complete feel-good package.
Sacramental sex: Divine love and human intimacy
What if everything we taught our kids about sex were grounded in a vision of God’s love in everyday life?
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Hollywood Town Hall & Tomorrow the Green Grass, by the Jayhawks
Alt-country is typically traced to Uncle Tupelo, but the early '90s Jayhawks made better records. Where Uncle Tupelo found scrappy affinities between traditional Americana and punk, the Jayhawks brought '70s country-rock to the alt-rock '90s.
Prayer as crucible
This is not a classic conversion story, let alone a pietistic revulsion against the intellect. It is an account of how prayer has the power to change one's perception of the theological task.
Low Country Blues, by Gregg Allman
While the most tried-and-true way to say "I'm a serious American roots artist" is to book Emmylou Harris to sing backup, a close second is to get T-Bone Burnett to be your producer.
Suffering through Lent: Illness and God’s promises
When Ash Wednesday arrived in 2009, my recently diagnosed stage IV cancer had already reduced two of my vertebrae to dust. I feared that the rest of me wasn't far behind.
Waiting to wed: Young adults on sex and marriage
The majority of young adults in America not only think they should explore different relationships, they believe it may be foolish and wrong not to.
Say Goodbye, by Liz Janes
While Say Goodbye is no
straightforward salute to Memphis, soul is as good a word as any for this quiet, strange but above all groovy little record.
Muslims and Copts together: Egypt’s interfaith revolution
One of the chief ramifications of the protests that overthrew Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was the way religious divisions were set aside in the process.
Blue Valentine
Marriage is a juicy topic for filmmakers, but few movies get made about happy ones. More common is the dissection of a once-happy union that is coming apart at the seams. The reasons for its demise usually involve such dramatic standbys as infidelity, illness or death, though a few directors with a more pronounced tragic vision have upped the ante by zeroing in on festering hatred (think John Cassavetes) or gut-wrenching psychological cruelty (a specialty of Ingmar Bergman).
Antifogmatic, by Punch Brothers
It's fine to eschew traditional bluegrass for intricate pop, but playing the latter with strict string-band instrumentation just sounds kind of gimmicky.
Books
Waiting for Selinsky
Olga Grushin offers her characters the dignity of their dreams. She is not impatient with their restless searching, and she does not dictate an outcome.
Beyond Accessibility, by Brett Webb-Mitchell
My former congregation prided itself on being warm and friendly. Then one Sunday Michael came to worship, and we discovered the limits of our welcome....
Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906–1945, by Ferdinand Schlingensiepen
Dietrich Bonhoeffer continues to captivate the Christian imagination in the English-speaking world 65 years after his murder by the Nazi regime, but this does not mean that his life and thought are...
Departments
A delayed meeting
The Bible's exhortation to care for the neighbor isn't necessarily a
metaphor. We really do have a responsibility to the people who live near
our church.
Scenes of grief
When I was six weeks into my student pastorate, I had been to exactly one funeral—when I was seven years old. But suddenly Johnny
Johnson died, I was a pastor, and Pearl Johnson collapsed in my arms.
Mexico’s crisis of faith
Many Mexican Christians behave heroically, working for peace and meeting social needs where government has
all but abdicated power. But the drug crisis has also exposed some weaknesses in the church.
Holy Trinity
How to comprehend the Holy Trinity? Reflecting on her woodblock and linoleum print, Holly Meade writes, "Well, there is no comprehending the Holy Trinity. And picturing the Holy Trinity? That's not to be either....
The union struggle
The attack on public unions could deliver a virtual knockout blow to the union movement, and that would be a blow to all workers.
News
Methodists grow abroad, continue slippage in U.S.
World membership in the United Methodist Church has risen above 12 million for the first time, but U.S. professing members dropped 1.2 percent to 7.8 million in the most recent data....
Gay cause leads in PCUSA voting
More than halfway through the balloting by regional presbyteries, a proposal to permit ordination of openly gay and lesbian pastors in the nation's largest Presbyterian denomination holds a lead....
Christchurch quake death toll rises as ruins probed
In the New Zealand city named after a place of faith, churches
shattered by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake were still yielding up their
dead days after the February 22 temblor as clergy and parishioners in...
Do Christian athletes seek big-dollar contracts like everyone else?
As contract talks broke down between Albert Pujols and the
Cardinals, St. Louis baseball fans began nervously asking themselves a
host of questions. He's a Cardinal for life, right? He wouldn't go to...
Forgiveness expert explores religious dimension
For more than a quarter of a century, psychologist Robert D. Enright
has been a pioneer in the scientific study of forgiveness—the kind of
guy Time magazine once dubbed "the forgiveness trailblazer."...
Hanson, WCC criticize U.S. veto of UN resolution on Israeli settlements
Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America said he was "dismayed" that the United States vetoed a UN
Security Council resolution that would have condemned the illegal...
Obama drops defense of antigay marriage law
The Obama administration has announced that it will no longer defend
the Defense of Marriage Act, a nearly 15-year-old law that defines
marriages as heterosexual unions....
Pro-union clergy voices enter Wisconsin debate
The pro-union rallies in Wisconsin have a retro feel to
them—particularly for people of faith. At one time clergy and
faith-based groups were on the front lines of the American labor...
Religious bodies oppose lower tax deductions
For the third time in three years President Obama's proposed budget
will attempt to reduce tax deductions for high-end charitable donors,
and for the third time nonprofits and religious organizations are
pushing back....
Budget cuts hurt poor, say religious groups
Get ready for more undernourished infants, dangerously cold homes and
disease-stricken communities in developing countries if proposed
federal budget cuts become law....
Huckabee draws heat for anti-Islam remarks
Southern Baptist preacher and former presidential candidate Mike
Huckabee has landed in hot water for comments critical of Islam....
Lectionary
Sunday, March 27, 2011: Exodus 17:1-7
Why not lead these refugees directly to safety, milk and honey? Why the desert, the wandering, the long years so far from home?