Latest Articles
Do you believe? The God question: The God question
It was posed at gunpoint to at least two of the victims in the Littleton, Colorado, school massacre. "Do you believe in God?" the killer asked. When a girl said yes, he shot her dead....
Physics and faith: The luminous web
Among the many compelling reasons for religious people to engage science is the human tendency to base our worldviews on the prevailing physics of the day....
The fine print of commitment: Psalm 69:8-11, 18-20Jeremiah 20:7-13Romans 6:1b-11Matthew 10:24-39
When i was baptized at the age of 11, I had no idea what the risks of believing in Jesus Christ would be....
Unknown places
When I came home from the hospital with a broken ankle, I was feeling fragile and sick from pain and the anesthetic I had been given....
Mysterious beginnings
What kind of book is Herman Melville's Moby Dick? Is it a book about whaling? In some ways it is—full of empirical information on the subject. Is it a novel about the perennial mystery of evil and its impact on the human spirit? It is that too.
Rocks of Ages, by Stephen Jay Gould
We could avoid all sorts of nasty fights, Stephen Jay Gould argues, if we would stop expecting science to provide validating evidence for religious dogmas or biblical events. Nor ought we to turn to religion to resolve questions of a properly scientific nature. He wants no more natural theology, no more "anthropic principle," no more attempts to find scientific confirmation for religious beliefs, and no more fundamentalist "creation science." In short, "science gets the age of rocks, and religion the rock of ages; science studies how the heavens go, religion how to go to heaven."
Extravagant Affections, by Susan A. Ross
A priest poses the question to a group of children: "How many sacraments are there?" Without missing a beat a little girl responds: "Seven for boys, and six for girls." The math may differ for different communions, with fewer sacraments distributed more equitably among the genders, but Susan A. Ross of Loyola University raises questions that no sacramental tradition can ignore. She posits a principle all traditions could embrace: all of life is potentially revelatory of the divine. Then Ross surveys all facets of her question: how can one construct a sacramental theology that takes the bodies of men and women as seriously as it takes the body of Christ?
In need of prayer
In securing the release of the three American soldiers held in Yugoslavia, Jesse Jackson, Joan Brown Campbell and the other U.S....
Journey to Belgrade: Religious partnership
Jesse Jackson would be the first to say that the religious leaders who accompanied him to Belgrade in late April were not just his props....
Solidarity with the Serbs: For Russian Orthodox, it's an east-west war
Carrying icons and church banners alongside hand-written slogans, several thousand Orthodox Christians marched on May 9 down Moscow's central Tverskaya Ulitsa, at a distance from the communist...
Our children’s happiness
I just want my child to be happy." Parents say this so often that it has become an accepted explanation for why a child is doing something other than what the parents would have hoped. And, in one ...
Sharing in the Holy Spirit: Genesis 1:1-2:4Psalm 8Matthew 28:16-202 Corinthians 13:11-13
Genesis 1:1-2:4Psalm 8Matthew 28:16-202 Corinthians 13:11-13...
Power and mystery
We are here to acknowledge the old and welcome the new, and to anticipate the role of our publication in the 21st century.
Beyond inertia
I am busy these days, so I'd just like to be able to sit down, write a straightforward review of David Ford's book, and be done with it. But I can't. This book has already begun to interfere with my life. It may even end up costing me real money. That check for the Kosovo relief effort I am now writing in my mind keeps getting outrageously larger. I worry that I might actually put it in the mail.
What would Jesus do?
Some of my students wear bracelets bearing the legend "WWJD"—What Would Jesus Do? Sometimes in the midst of a discussion about some hard issue, I ask a student sporting such a bracelet to apply that question to the problem. The replies range from embarrassed silence and empty platitudes to wonderfully astute observations. The astute replies are usually based on the story or stories of Jesus, and exercise what William Spohn calls "the analogical imagination."
Disciplines of listening
Barbara Brown Taylor's concise, pithy and challenging prose is evidence that she is practicing what she preaches: that Christian pastors take more care with the words they use and treat language with economy, courtesy and reverence.
Disasters and deformities
Several years have passed since I last encountered a book by Annie Dillard, but her images remain as strong in the memory as Proust's madeleine. Her gaze concentrates on the ordinary until it is transformed into the transcendent: a tree so intensely colored that it gives off light; a sky's invisible clouds revealed only in reflected images on the surface of a glassy lake; a bowl of pond water where one-celled creatures are visible to the naked eye.
Animal rights, human claims
Are vegetarians trying to save animals or are they trying to save themselves? Is vegetarianism about changing the world or escaping from it? These are questions the acclaimed novelist and critic J. M. Coetzee raises in a wonderfully inventive and inconclusive book.