Latest Articles
Checklist for pilgrims
A Place for God: A Guide to Spiritual Retreats and Retreat Centers, by Timothy Jones...
Tending the Flock, edited by K. Brynolf Lyon and Archie Smith Jr.
What is a family and what does family ministry entail?...
From the Holy Mountain, by William Dalrymple
William Dalrymple is a gifted travel writer who skillfully draws on church history, theology, Middle East politics and comparative religions to tell the story of Middle East Christians....
Élian’s hometown
The U.S. embargo against Cuba is crumbling of its own absurdity. An increasing number of religious, academic and business groups are eager to visit Cuba....
Guns, more guns: What should the grown-ups do?
Where were the parents? we ask when a kid commits a crime....
Faithful and respectful: Paradox of pluralism
Three years ago, on the very first broadcast of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, the PBS program I host, we did a feature on a stretch of road outside Washington, D.C., that has been...
Practical matters: Faith at work
Back when I made my living as a high school English teacher, I used to tell my ninth graders that the class unit with the most practical application to their lives was Greek tragedy....
New life for denominationalism: It's no longer taken for granted
On the cusp of the 21st century, a strange thing is happening. Congregations—not all, but a noticeable number—are choosing to highlight their denominational particularities....
The King assassination: After three decades, another verdict
In December a jury in Memphis, Tennessee, concluded that Martin Luther King Jr....
Glimpses of goodness
Science fiction, mystery, comedy, serious drama, cartoons, art film—with the exception of musicals, slashers and cowboy pictures, I love movies....
Extraordinary lives
The last time I wrote about scanning the obituaries, I referred to people whose accomplishments were widely recognized....
God spoke these words: Exodus 20:1-17
Exodus speaks to those for whom freedom is a dream, and to those who sense that freedom is becoming a curse.
The digital Luther
Martin Luther: Exploring His Life and Times, 1483-1546, by Helmar Jughans (CD-ROM)...
God After Auschwitz, by Zachary Braiterman
Zachary Braiterman challenges a well-subscribed theory about the delay in the expression of post-Holocaust thought and the onset of dialogue....
Going negative: The Religious Right flexes its muscles
Just a few years ago the Religious Right was talking about making itself more appealing and effective in mainstream politics....
Progress and 'relapse' The Century and World War I: The Century and World War I
Before the outbreak of World War I, the Century, not unlike many other American journals, regularly expressed an idealistic and basically isolationist position when considering America’s r...
The day we bless the chainsaws: Faith at work
I imagine it like this. We put up signs all over the Northeast Kingdom, that region of Vermont in which my neighbors and I continue to enjoy the distinction of being outnumbered by Holstein cows....
Grace in the face of suicide: Theological questions and hopes
Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, by Kay Redfield Jamison....
Nullifiers and insurrectionists: America’s antigovernment tradition
A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government, by Garry Wills...
A bottomless pit
"The politics of death is a bottomless pit that sucks everybody in.” This judgment, offered by a California attorney who has tried more than 100 capital cases, aptly summarizes the complicated argu...