Latest Articles
Doing sixty
I was doing 60 and thinking about my boss, who's been on my ass lately, when the doe bounded out of the cedars and onto the highway....
Stories of our lives
I have often been compared to my father. Though I neither look nor sound like him, I seem to have his temperament, some of his intellectual gifts and some of his vices....
Making the list
I'm not going to debate whether lists of "the best" or "the worst" are valuable or destructive. Americans like lists of bests and worsts. So there....
Saints in the making
For well over a thousand years November 1, or All Saints Day, has been marked in red on the Christian calendar....
There but for the grace of God
Bill Clinton's remarks at the White House prayer breakfast more than made up for his less-than-contrite confession on the night of his grand jury appearance....
Taking action in Kosovo
Dealing with brutal and cunning tyrants has never been easy, but it should at least be clear now that Slobodan Milosovic is all three: brutal, cunning and tyrannical....
Ecumenical impasse? The Vatican on Justification by Faith: The Vatican on Justification by Faith
The issuing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification last year by representatives of the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church elicited great rejoicing....
The making of a postliberal: Formed and reformed: Two stories
Sitting on the four corners of an intersection in the town where I grew up are the public school, the library, the town hall and my home church....
The making of a postliberal: Beyond civic faith: Two stories
Seattle's Plymouth Congregational Church could be described as an "old first church." Founded in 1869 when the population of the city was 1,000, the church conceived of its mission as one of civili...
Piercing the heart
He was sitting quietly, almost impassively, as I talked to a group of people gathered in Zagreb at the launching of the Croatian translation of my book Exclusion and Embrace....
Provocative worship
Fewer people should be dozing off during worship, if items I'm seeing in church bulletins are any indication....
General principles: Luke 18:9-14
I had a childhood friend whose mother yelled at her a lot. Her mother's ravings, however, were rarely attached to identifiable offenses....
Encountering the texts
By Herman L. Sinaiko, Reclaiming the Canon: Essays on Philosophy, Poetry, and History. (Yale University Press, 338 pp.)...
Worship with One Accord, by Geoffrey Wainwright and Christian Liturgy, by Frank C. Senn
By Geoffrey Wainwright, Worship with One Accord: Where Liturgy & Ecumenism Embrace. (Oxford University Press, 276 pp.)...
Mayhem, by Sissela Bok
By Sissela Bok, Mayhem: Violence as Public Entertainment. (Addison Wesley Longman, 194 pp.)...
Appalling behavior
The president's conduct as revealed in Kenneth Starr's report to Congress is appalling and indefensible. He has been self-indulgent and careless of the truth and of other people's lives....
Scholar for the church: Raymond E. Brown, 1928-98
The Death of Raymond E. Brown, S.S., on August 8 in Redwood City, California, came as a thief in the night--unexpected, unwanted and unwelcomed....
Managing the global economy
The riots that struck Jakarta, Indonesia, in May, forcing President Suharto out of office, were in part politically motivated; Suharto's 32-year reign was anything but democratic....