Features
Being a pastor within the secular frame means teaching people how to pray
Why climate activist Bill McKibben is concerned about AI and genetic engineering
What happened after my mostly white church put up a Black Lives Matter sign
Voices
Philip Jenkins
Christian martyrs in orange jumpsuits
The 21 men murdered in 2015 will be remembered long after the era of ISIL is forgotten.
Debie Thomas
Letting go of the plan and embracing the dream
I used to have Jeremiah 29:11 in a frame on my wall. I don’t anymore.
Books
Tracing the racist history of the death penalty in Georgia
R.J. Maratea argues that lynching declined when white people began to realize that the courtroom would work just as well.
A physicist explores mystical experience
Alan Lightman asks great questions about science and religion. His answers are sometimes frustrating.
Kathryn Tanner’s anti-work ethic
The theologian doesn’t want finance capitalism to determine what we’re worth.
An Israeli writer’s final word to his fellow citizens
Amos Oz feared that fanaticism was rising in Israel as well as in the West.
Departments
Christian martyrs in orange jumpsuits
Of All the City Blocks, by CJ Dates
Letting go of the plan and embracing the dream
Will the SAT’s new “adversity score” help students?
News
David M. Mellott becomes president of Christian Theological Seminary
Mellott has written on a wide range of topics, including liberation for gay clergy and ethnography as a theological practice.
Sarah B. Drummond becomes dean of Andover Newton Seminary
She is the first woman to lead the school in its 212-year history.
Jonathan L. Walton becomes dean of the School of Divinity at Wake Forest University
“Research and teaching are not simply academic exercises for me,” Walton said.
Revival of religion in Cuba reaches public square
Religious diversity and participation have flourished in Cuba since the country loosened restrictions. Christians are aiding their neighbors—and testing possibilities for political dissent.
Congo churches continue work to stop Ebola despite attacks by militants
A Methodist church-based messaging platform has sent hundreds of texts to people’s phones about how to prevent Ebola transmission.
Chris Hobgood, Disciples leader and anti-racism advocate, dies at age 83
Hobgood was the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) general minister and president from 2003 to 2005, and founded the Disciples Center for Public Witness.
Faith-based activists win fight to clean up Los Angeles drilling site
The oil drilling facility is 130 feet from a church and 730 feet from an elementary school, reported a local coalition fighting for regulation of such sites.
Southern Baptist seminary nixes idea of reparations to black Baptist college
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has acknowledged that it benefited from the slave trade. A clergy group encouraged the school to give part of its endowment to a college started by people who had been enslaved.
Botswana overturns law criminalizing gay and lesbian sexual relationships
Botswana, like dozens of countries worldwide, inherited its law on gay sex from the British Empire. In recent years momentum has been building to repeal those laws.
30 years after Tiananmen Square, China still restricting freedoms
Yan Xiong, who was a student leader at the 1989 demonstrations, sees Chinese people increasingly becoming disillusioned. Authorities have arrested pastors and placed more than 1 million Uighur Muslims into internment camps.