Features
Letting suffering in: How a colleague's death changed my teaching
I knew Jannie Swart's witness would have a lasting impact on our seminary. I didn't anticipate how it would challenge me in the classroom.
A seminary’s calculated risk: CBTS president Molly T. Marshall
"We had to be willing to do a clear-eyed assessment of our financial situation—and to risk our old identity for the sake of a renewed mission."
Why leaders are a pain: Truth telling in the parish
There's a subtext to lots of sermons I hear, and some I preach: Discomfort is avoidable. Here's my formula. It's the promise of all bogus religion.
Should Episcopalians repent? American liberals in a global communion
The Episcopal Church was and is right to affirm same-sex marriage. Now we should be willing to face the costs.
Burying William: Funeral for a gang victim
I didn't start my day thinking about gang killings. But then a man showed up and asked about a funeral for his nephew—on Palm Sunday.
Still life with winter squash: Notes from the farm
It landed on my patio in early November, a pointy-ended battleship that was more mineral than vegetable. It stayed there as the days got shorter.
God’s dice: Randomness can have purpose
Randomness is distinct from the Greek concept of chance. Conflating the two imports to science the sense that random events are gratuitous.
The weave
The fifth-grade team had been coached since the Council of Trent by Mr. Torrens, whose idea of offense consisted of one utterly useless play.
Biblical farce
Esther's story would be infuriating if it wasn't so over-the-top ridiculous.
Las bandas niños: A Latino church empowers young musicians
Iglesia Hispana Emanuel has about 100 members. José Guillermo Salamea is teaching some 40 of them how to play an instrument.
Names with faces: An ID card turns strangers into neighbors
A lack of ID caused problems for immigrants—as well as for the police who encountered them. Through a series of dialogues, a solution emerged.
Vancouver’s stony soil: The church in the secular city
British Columbia's church attendance rate is lower than Canada's, and Vancouver's is lower still. Yet vibrant things are happening in the city.
Copastors: Twenty years in marriage and ministry
What has made this experiment in marriage and ministry work, both for the congregation and for us?
Christmas picks
Brian McLaren, Sara Miles, Chris Wiman, and others make their selections.
Dance in the dark: Preaching the blues without despair
America is living stormy Monday while the pulpit is preaching happy Sunday. Can we recover a blues sensibility?
How wide is God’s mercy? The Holy Spirit in other religions
Could the Spirit's love be poured into the hearts of people untouched by the incarnation? Could non-Christians be lovers of the only God there is?
China’s gospel valley: Churches thrive among the Lisu people
The Upper Salween Valley is an inhospitable, sparsely populated place. It may seem like an unlikely place for a Christian community to thrive.
Soil and soul: Our Protestant agrarian past
Christians didn’t baptize Aldo Leopold’s land ethic after the fact. They got there years before his work.
Writing the Christian life: The essence of spiritual memoir
A memoir becomes explicitly Christian when it derives its literary power from the power of the gospel. It doesn't preach, it shows.