language

You cannot bear witness with a single word like genocide. Yet Night describes exactly what happened to me.

The Jesuits didn't impose a European language on the Guaraní people; they actively cultivated the indigenous one.

Laurent Binet's latest novel is at once a lecture, a detective story, and an exploration of the limits of fiction.

In Aharon Appelfeld's novel, a teenage Holocaust survivor sleeps, remembers, and learns to speak anew.

John Simpson's new memoir is about words. More significantly, it’s about our relationship to them.

Much of what Christianity has long been saying about the cross of Christ is problematic. So what is to be done about it?

A fast-growing number of people do not have a religious first language. And many churches don't seem eager to connect with them.

Those who heard the disciples preach on Pentecost comprehended the message in their own language. But that was only the beginning.

In John's prologue, the incarnate Word is the God of creative address.

Learning a language requires us to focus our attention on something outside ourselves. It's a lot like learning to pray.

My Italian is rusty. When I go to church in Rome and try to follow along, I'm reminded of Woolf's "incessant shower of innumerable atoms."

The best outcome of the tensions in Ukraine would allow the country to develop its unique role as a bridge between languages and cultures.

Guys, it's okay: the new definition of "literally" is not actually new. It's also not even a little bit of a problem.

The digital age is changing not only the words we use but also their meanings. Have you noticed, for instance, that “Christ follower” is replacing “born again” and “evangelical”? Take a moment to peruse the list of who Rick Warren follows on Twitter.

Earlier this year, the Century published a piece by an environmental scientist on just how radical the current shift in CO2 levels are—from the perspective of 50 million years. As I was working with that scientist, Lee Vierling, on the piece, we struggled to find a language that he and I and readers of the Century could share.

He wanted something that was fluid and scientifically absolutely accurate. He also wanted to be certain that he was not using scare tactics.

A few months ago I preached a sermon that a lot of people loved and a few people hated. I heard from both groups but spent more time, as is perennially the case in ministry, with the few.

I didn’t set off to be controversial. I looked at the texts, read some commentaries. (Get behind me, Satan.) And then, in the middle of the week, a United Methodist preacher's kid made the news.

More books have been published about Stanley Cavell than he has written himself. Why?