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Generation J, by Lisa Schiffman
Lisa Schiffman's spiritual quest culminates in a tattoo, inked into her shoulder blade, of a leafy vine running through a Star of David....
Orchestrated chaos: Crisis in East Timor
The big bold type across the magazine's cover said "Slaughter in East Timor." But the issue was dated 1979, not 1999....
Faith, power and the poor: Remembering Hélder Câmara
Dom Hélder Câmara, who died in Recife, Brazil, on August 27, was one of the great leaders of the 20th century. Like most bishops, he was a politician who built links to the rich and powerful....
Bookmarks: Summer highlights
As we settle into our every-week publishing schedule, some Century editors review some of the books that absorbed their attention over the summer....
Caring and working: An agrarian perspective: Lessons in creatureliness
It is hard to know which was more difficult for Noah: to build the ark when there was no sign of rain, or to be in the ark with the animals for an entire year....
Great Lakes, troubled waters: Signs of distress
It's a little after 4 p.m. when I hear my name paged at Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital. It's Lent 1971. I'm working as a student chaplain a few blocks west of Lake Michigan....
Acquainted with death
It was my last day at St. Benedict's Monastery in Minnesota, where I had been leading a retreat on Julian of Norwich. Since St....
Attracting attention
Tina Brown, celebrity editor of Talk, previously of the New Yorker, was welcoming writer Alexander Chancellor at a dinner party in New York....
Party time: Matthew 22:1-14
Tables spread with mouth-watering morsels, guests gathered in the perfect ambiance, lots of noise, laughter and fun. We know a party when we see one....
Who are the Adventists?
Seventh-day Adventism in Crisis: Gender and Sectarian Change in an Emerging Religion, by Laura L. Vance...
The Ambitious Generation, by Barbara Schneider and David Stevenson
Adolescence has a relatively brief history. It did not emerge as an identifiable life stage until the early 20th century....
The Practice of Reading, by Denis Donoghue
Denis Donoghue wants us to get back to reading literature as literature....
The Secular Mind, by Robert Coles
This meditation on faith's fragility could not come at a better time....
False Hopes, by Daniel Callahan
Medicine, Daniel Callahan argues, has become the sustainer of false hope in the face of death and dissolution....
True compassion
It is hard not to conclude, given his recent stumbling about on the issue, that at some point prior to his 30th birthday Governor George W. Bush used cocaine....
Scouts' honor: A public-private confusion
The Boy Scouts of America want to exclude gays, atheists and agnostics. They think they have the right to do so because they are, they claim, a private, voluntary organization....
A catholic vision: At the ELCA assembly
"It's not the whole show," cried Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America prior to the denomination's Churchwide Assembly in Denver....
Imagining a new church: Disciples, not members
As the organizing pastor of a suburban congregation, I have experienced firsthand its faltering first steps, its seasons of growth and drought, and the Spirit's persistent attempts to help us ident...
Countering hatred: Neglect is not benign
In a nine-state area of the Midwest, 272 far-right-wing organizations—including Christian Identity, Christian Patriot, neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan groups—ply their racist and anti-Semitic ideologies....