Latest Articles
Anne Lamott’s divine comedy: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith.By Anne Lamott. Pantheon, 275 pp.
Read the sidebar interview, 'God lets me start over.'...
Feed my dogs: Matthew 15: 21-28
Given current trends in North American Christianity and culture, I can easily imagine a day when a child, seeing a crucifix for the first time and asking her mother what on earth it might be, will ...
Blood and water
"Blood is thicker than water." Though I didn't always know precisely what they meant by it, this is a saying I heard from relatives on my mother's side throughout my childhood....
Ordinary people and the Holocaust
The 20th century has been scarred by the mass murder of ethnic groups in Armenia, Nazi-occupied Europe, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo. On a smaller scale, hate crimes against certain groups also erupt in this country. What factors converge to make such violence possible? Can anything be done to prevent it?
A good value
In his influential Theory of Justice John Rawls speaks of a "difference principle," a way of legitimizing social differences....
I’ve got a sneaking idea, or I’d just get me a lawyer
I don't suppose there's ever been a woman more plainspoken and down-to-earth than my mother....
Christian juxtapositions: Peace in Northern Ireland
The Vision of Peace: Faith and Hope in Northern Ireland. By Mareid Corrigan Maguire. Orbis, 123 pp....
Christian juxtapositions: Holy Things and Holy People
Though the World Council of Churches' consensus document Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry is a work of enormous significance, it may strike one as bland. Gordon Lathrop, a Lutheran theologian, presents much the same material in two books (the first published in 1993) that are lively, provocative and challenging.
Deeds and creeds
The story of the lone, crazed gunman is a familiar one in America, but that is not the story of Benjamin Smith, who went on a drive-by shooting spree in Illinois and Indiana over the July 4 weekend...
Meanwhile in Bosnia: War has hampered reconstruction
On the way to my office in Sarajevo I pass four European embassies, where every day for the past three months up to 100 people have gathered, pressing against the gates in the hopes of getting a vi...
Send a Christian to camp
What is the most important spiritual gift that we can pass on to our children?...
Religion-free texts: Getting an illiberal education
In the current culture wars, religious liberals tend to ally themselves with the educational establishment against those on the Religious Right who are attacking the public schools....
Missing connections
If you want to understand why Americans are largely indifferent to the plight of the Palestinians, consider the focus of two recent news stories....
The other temptations: Matthew 14:13-21
I find it hard to believe that the Jesus of Matthew's Gospel could have fed the 5,000 in the wilderness without recalling his own temptation....
Vocation
During my first year of teaching, I learned the hazards of asking college seniors their postgraduation plans....
Thank the Creator for creators
Question: who are Crombie Taylor, Lyndon Lyon, Paul Sacher, John Tigrett, Waldo Semon, Ed Peterson and James Blades? Do you recognize any of their names? Let's look around us....
For the sake of conscience
The U.S. Supreme Court's opinions about the relationship between religion and the state have been increasingly separationist, argues Phillip Hammond, a distinguished sociologist of religion and contributor to the so-called civil religion discussion. Although the nation "began as a de facto Protestant society," it has since the close of the Civil War moved toward greater and greater government neutrality not only toward differing religions but also toward the difference between religion and irreligion. This is as it should be, Hammond thinks. Behind the Constitution, he contends, is a "constitutional faith," and separationism, rightly understood, is its legal or judicial expression.
The Divine Conspiracy
The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God.By Dallas Willard, HaperSanFrancisco, 428 pp. ...
Reading with Deeper Eyes
One of the best things about William Willimon's new book is that he introduces us to serious, spiritually significant works of fiction and makes us want to read them. One of the worst is that we might be tempted to take Willimon's book as a shortcut, using his summaries of great novels as a substitute for reading them.