Features
Saved by stalemate: When the church splits 50-50
It’s beautiful when the congregational system is humming along—the church is Spirit-filled, worshipers are bearing each other’s burdens, submitting to one another and rejoicing continually. When faced with major decisions, the congregation seeks the Lord and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. After prayer and copious dialogue, a consensus emerges. Or the congregational system hits a pothole. The decision-making process is accelerated or compressed for a decision that has huge implications for the life of the church; the issues raised are theologically profound and the consequences painful no matter what is decided. At these times, a congregation can see its unity shattered.
Stop-Loss
Staff Sergeant Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) thinks Tikrit will be the last stop on his tour of duty in Iraq. It’s a bad finish: he leads his men into an ambush. He loses three of them and another winds up blind and crippled. When Brandon and his childhood friend Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum) return to their Texas hometown, they’re proclaimed war heroes. Brandon can’t wait to put the war behind him. Then he learns that he’s been “stop-lossed”—that is, his service has been extended beyond the normal time period because of the military’s need for troops.
Books
The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and U.S. Foreign Policy
These are sobering times....
Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets
At first glance, Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day looks something like a spin-off television show....
Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation
Alasdair MacIntyre famously compared dying for the modern nation-state to d...
Tree of Smoke: A Novel
Late in Denis Johnson’s novel, one of his many defeated, aimless characters, Bill Houston, surveys what Johnson elsewhere calls “the cancelled life”:...
Opa Nobody
Writing family history is a notoriously fraught enterprise....
Take and read
De La Torre brings new light to the book of Jonah when he sets it in conversation with the lives of marginalized peoples....
Take and read
Begbie’s overall project is exploring the place of music in God’s ecology of creation....
Take and read
Two distinguished scholars offer us important new statements about Christian ethics....
The liberal Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton as Controversialist, Essayist, Novelist and Critic. By John D. Coates. Edwin Mellen Press, 206 pp., $109.95...
Books in search of an author
"Of making many books there is no end,” says Ecclesiastes. Certainly more books are made than can be read, and many are produced that probably didn’t need to be....
Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity
This book inaugurates a new series, Oxford Studies in World Christianity, to be edited by Lamin O. Sanneh....
Happiness and the Christian Moral Life: An Introduction to Christian Ethics
This is a book that I believe is right, true and helpful....
A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming
A theological engagement with the current global environmental crisis needs to do four things....
Departments
All in the family: One bread, one body
On the third Sunday of Easter I was in La Jolla, California, for the baptism of a granddaughter. If there is anything better than witnessing and participating in the baptism of a grandchild, I don’t know what it is....
Seminary distress: In search of new models
Jesus taught his disciples in the outdoors, without a prescribed curriculum. His lessons were passed on by way of oral tradition before being written down. ...
Choosing a seminary: Learned ministry is about all of us
In American theological education, we are in the midst of recruitment season. Applications to M.Div. programs across the country have been read and argued over by admissions committees, and offers of admission have gone out in the mail....
Pewless: When to head for the door
This spring a certain Christian layperson has been criticized for not exiting his local church when he disagreed with something his pastor preached. ...
News
Religious freedom panel says Bush should skip games or visit Tibet: Commission on International Religious Freedom
An independent federal body that monitors religious freedom is urging President Bush not to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing unless there are discernible changes in China’s policy toward Tibet....
Yearbook editor leaves expanded NCC position
Eileen Lindner, the widely respected researcher who has overseen the annual Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches for 10 years, will leave her post at the National Council of Churches on May 15....
Reform Jewish leader calls Hagee 'extremist' unworthy of support: Different views on what it means to support Israel
The president of the 1.5-million-member Reform Judaism movement called controversial Texas pastor John Hagee an “extremist” and urged fellow rabbis to shun his high-profile support of Israel....
Law from 1867 relates to Episcopal fight, judge says: Property disputes in Civil War times
A Virginia court has ruled that a Civil War–era law applies to a property dispute between the state’s Episcopal diocese and 11 congregations that have seceded from it....
New Orleans plans for fewer Catholic churches: A massive restructuring plan
Archbishop Alfred Hughes of New Orleans is asking his Catholic flock, including those far from the flood zone, to prepare for a reorganization of Catholic life befitting a church deeply damaged by Hurricane Katrina....
Church-closing rate only one percent: More "churning" among evangelicals
With a dozen regulars or fewer attending services, the 150-year-old Kinderhook United Methodist Church in rural Illinois near the Mississippi River shut its doors this Easter. That Sunday was also the last for St....
Century Marks
Golden Rules: Playwright George Bernard Shaw detected a flaw in the Golden Rule: "Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you," he said; "their tastes may be different." The late Richard Graham had his own take: "You shouldn't do unto others what you wouldn't want done to you" (Washington Monthly, January/February/March).
People
A national Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) committee has nominated Gradye Parsons, a former Tennessee pastor and presbytery executive, to succeed Clifton Kirkpatrick as stated clerk, the denomination’s top executive, at the June 17 elec...
Briefly noted
Texas authorities took swift action in April to find homes and resources for the more than 400 children removed from the Yearning for Zion Ranch located outside Eldorado....
Lutheran office buys carbon credits: Ecological modeling
While it can’t cut back on travel for church business, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has indicated, it hopes to elevate its ecological modeling to make up for the heavy environmental cost of air travel....
Vatican: Muslims now outnumber Catholics: First time in history
Although Christianity remains the largest religion worldwide, the Vatican says that Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism in estimated numbers because of higher birthrates among Muslims....
Jordan's king donates land for church at baptismal river site: Anglicans to build at Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan
King Abdullah II of Jordan has given a plot of land to the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem for construction of a church and retreat center at the much-visited Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan site, where, according to tradition, Jesus’ baptism by John the...
High court to hear case on monument displays: Newer sect wants equal treatment
It’s the Ten Commandments versus the Seven Aphorisms, and it’ll be coming to the U.S. Supreme Court sometime in its 2008-2009 term....
NCC: Global warming will elevate relief costs: Reduced availability of food and water expected
Global warming will force faith organizations to significantly increase spending on humanitarian efforts—including refugee resettlement, food distribution and disaster relief—according to a new study by the National Council of Churches....
Lectionary
Gifts all around us: John 20:19-23; Acts 2:1-21; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
What happens to a person when the Holy Spirit descends like a tongue of fire? In Acts, those present were filled with the Holy Spirit. We all long for this. We all seek fulfillment. I saw this once when I was conducting a spiritual retreat for members of various 12-step groups. Each person spoke powerfully about how the pain of emptiness in his life had led him down wayward paths. Each had discovered that “you can never get enough of that which will not satisfy.”