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December 2, 2020

Volume 137, Issue #25

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Features

First Person

I was a scribe for the Chicago Illuminated Scripture Project

What would possess me to copy a chapter of the Bible by hand?

by Heidi Haverkamp

Critical Essay

Billy Graham and Barack Obama each offered a pastoral voice in a time of tragedy

We need someone to speak to our moment, too.

by Grant Wacker

Critical Essay

What we lost when the funeral home replaced the home funeral

Death rituals used to happen in our houses. What if we brought them back?

by Christiana N. Peterson

First Person

Grieving my daughter’s suicide in a time of wider grief

My years of experience as an undertaker didn’t make it easier.

by Thomas Lynch

First Person

My dad died from COVID-19. My grief is a lonely one.

I’m the only person he loved the way he loved me.

by Charlotte Donlon

Reflection

How do we grieve the hundreds of thousands of people the COVID-19 pandemic has killed?

We posed this question to five writers.

I

Books

The Old Testament, the Tanakh, and the Hebrew Bible

Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler show how multiple traditions arise when different people read the same text.

by George C. Heider

Journeying with Father Dan and a coyote along the via negativa

Daniel Hornsby’s debut novel has a wonderful road-trippy feeling.

by Amy Frykholm

When religion thrived in New York

Jon Butler’s dazzling study of faith and practice in a 20th-century metropolis

by Philip Jenkins

Departments

Faith Matters

Mary’s song reveals her politics of mercy

I think Jesus learned his prophetic ministry from his mother.

by Isaac S. Villegas

From the Editors

Looking to Advent as we grieve our COVID-19 dead

Lament and longing can be companions.

Screen Time

Ted Lasso is the soccer coach we all need

What if kindness, honesty, and compassion were valued more than winning?

by Kathryn Reklis

First Words

George H. W. Bush’s letter to Bill Clinton was a model of respect and solidarity

What will Donald Trump leave for Joe Biden?

by Peter W. Marty

On Art

“I Can’t Breathe,” by Carl Dixon

George Floyd’s dying words on a Minneapolis street have become a lament for the nation....

art selection and comment by John Kohan

News

In Nashville, a former Catholic school-turned-swingers club is reborn as a homeless shelter

The red brick building at the corner of Drexel Street and Seventh Avenue South in Nashville has a colorful history....

by Bob Smietana

People

Influential British rabbi Jonathan Sacks dies at 72

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, a widely admired teacher and prolific writer who connected Jewish thought with a larger concern for universal human values, died on November 7....

by Yonat Shimron

People

Gospel music legend Rance Allen dies at 71

Rance Allen, a Gospel Music Hall of Fame inductee perhaps best known for his hit “Something About the Name Jesus,” died on October 31 at the age of 71....

by Roxanne Stone