Latest Articles
What can Christians give? Pertinent visions
In this new century, any credible answer to that question needs to be prefaced by what we cannot give....
Lost in the digital cosmos: Trying to ask the right questions
Writer Jon Katz recently said that news coverage of the Internet lurches “from one extreme to the other.” Either the Net is “a dread menace or it’s a Utopian vision.” Journalism, he concluded, “has...
Diabolical sentimentality
Ever since I was a child, my mother has observed the season of Christmas in the same way....
Cosmic shifts
If you were around any of the years in this chronology you probably didn’t notice—I didn’t—the instant effect of the following:
1944—first automatic, general purpose digital computer;...
Wine tasting: 2 Corinthians 3:1-6; Mark 2:13-22
As the gusty winds of change blow unpredictably through the church, Jesus provides an intriguing sound bite in the Gospel lesson: “One puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” Fresh wineskins, as faith...
Desire of the Everlasting Hills, by Thomas Cahill
Thomas Cahill's title comes from Genesis 49:26. Though it is hard to see any reference to Jesus in that passage, it does come close to defining this book's tone....
Where they belong
The four front-runners for the presidency are following what has become a political pattern: candor when there are no votes to be lost, extreme caution when votes are at risk....
Left out: Not everyone is prospering
A rising economic tide lifts everybody’s financial boat. Well, almost everybody’s....
At the Parliament of Religions: Notes from Cape Town
When Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was asked in 1993 why he was attending a “parliament of the world’s religions,” he answered that we are told to “welcome strangers,” that many things are happening in...
Teaching theology in context: Learning together
In the fall of 1998 Candler School of Theology made a serious wager concerning its future: it launched a comprehensive new program in contextual education....
Formed for ministry: A program in spiritual formation: Learning and praying
"I want my seminary experience to form me as a person of prayer.” We had never heard a student state this desire so eloquently and succinctly....
But I am not Abraham
For some time now I have been both attracted to and troubled by the story of Abraham’s journey to present his son Isaac as a burnt offering in the land of Moriah....
Crime data
Every year I wait for the January issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research....
Twice healed: 2 Corinthians 1:18-22; Mark 2:1-12
When the congregation I serve initiated a prayer chain several years ago, its participants were amazed at the response: healing intercessions requested for all manner of illnesses and ailments—phys...
Education for what mission?
Reenvisioning Theological Education: Exploring a Missional Alternative to Current Models, by Robert Banks...
Saint Augustine, by Garry Wills
Peter Brown is credited with discovering Augustine the old man. Gary Wills should be recognized for discovering Augustine the young man....
Clergy Women, by Barbara Brown Zikmund, Adair T. Lummis and Patricia M. Y. Chang
During nearly 40 years of full-time ministry, I have experienced many of the changes and "uphill" journeys explored in this well-researched, carefully organized book....
The Cousins' War, by Kevin Phillips
The 20th century has ended much as it began, with ethnic hostilities in the Balkans, sectarian violence in China, a change of power in South Africa, "reform" in Russia and economic power in the han...
Swaggart, by Ann Rowe Seaman
They are as American as the Fourth of July, these sensationalist preachers who nowadays crowd the TV screen and in earlier days brought thousands into camp meetings....