Amy Frykholm
Five comforts of monocultural church
Our church is in the midst of a major transition: it’s becoming bicultural. The combined joy and pain of our growth is intense and surprising at every turn. Sometimes I wonder if this is how a tree feels when it begins to grow new branches. I often feel fatigued in advance by the complexity of the conversations we want and need to have, as well as scared of where we are going and what it will require of me.
It’s at these times that I find myself contemplating the comforts of what we used to be, a monocultural church
My church's bicultural conversations
It started with food. A long line of people stood outside the church door waiting their turn as the groceries piled up on folding tables around the sanctuary....
The precious ordinary: Novelist Kent Haruf
“I wanted to create a different kind of preacher—someone who would be in opposition to what would be normal in a small town like that.”
The Good Lord Bird: A Novel by James McBride
The Good Lord Bird is a tale of the antebellum South like none you’ve heard. A young slave is liberated by John Brown, who will later try to ignite a revolution.
Everyday blessings
Novelist Kent Haruf has often drawn on his upbringing on the sparse eastern plains of Colorado. But in his latest novel, Benediction, Haruf inches closer to his roots than he ever has. One of his central characters is a minister in a small town church that’s much like the ones that Haruf grew up in as the son of a Methodist minister.
Premarital wisdom: How pastors are counseling same-sex couples
Same-sex couples present clergy with particular challenges. Yet many ministers say this work illuminates their understanding of marriage generally.
Why are clinics for the uninsured expanding under Obamacare?
The Affordable Care Act is intended to reduce the number of people who are without health insurance. Then why are clinics for the uninsured and underinsured planning to expand?
...First Posadas
About a decade ago, the rector of our small Episcopal church began to incorporate Spanish into the liturgy. She didn’t do this because we had Spanish-speaking members. We didn’t. She did it, she said, to remind us that the liturgy doesn’t belong to us alone.
Families of faith: Sociologist Vern Bengtson
"Religiosity is a driving force more salient than belief. Agreement with specific beliefs is the least likely religious trait to be passed on."
Cavaliers, Borderers and immigration reform
Last week, House Speaker John Boehner announced that he has no intention of movi...
Questions for Carlene Bauer
"The big struggle for me as a young person was how to be someone who was interested in creativity and art and not losing one's faith to do it."
Faith as a romance
Carlene Bauer's characters create each other as pieces of their imaginations. They do the same thing with God.
What I'd like to say to the young Flannery O'Connor
The New Yorker recently published excerpts from Flannery O’Connor’s youthful ...
Pulled home
While Gravity doesn't pass the Bechdel test, it does feature a female lead in a story that isn't about romance or sex. But is it her story or Everyman's?
Out of Syria: Archbishop Cyril Karim
"On my first visit to the United States, someone asked when I converted to Christianity. I told him 2,000 years ago."
Insured in Colorado
I don’t have a sob story. My family is healthy; we’ve never been denied coverage. We are simply self-employed and want to stay that way. And paying for private, individual health insurance is an ongoing dilemma.
The Obamacare exchanges and me
I opened a letter from my medical insurance company the other day that informed me that as of October 1, my plan will no longer exist....