September 21, 2010

Hobgood-Oster, who teaches religion and environmental studies at South­western University, describes her book as "both a religious-environmental history and a contemporary theology."

United Methodist pastor Elise Erik­son Barrett writes for women who have experienced miscarriage, pastors who help couples grapple with it and anyone who has helped a friend, spouse or relative grieve.

Too much writing about the arts and Christianity is apologetic, explaining why the church should be concerned about artistic expression. Within that category is a lot of writing that voices high-minded generalities about "good art" and "bad art" and about who should and should not be making art.

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Leonard Bern­stein was there to celebrate with Beet­hoven's Ninth Symphony. The great chorus did not voice the familiar "Freude, Freude" ("joy, joy") but instead sang "Freiheit, Freiheit" ("freedom, freedom"). That simple, direct, unambiguous mo­ment, however, is not the norm for thinking about freedom.

Anyone who has watched children play knows the spectacularly creative and subversive ways in which they can use playthings, even "safe" religious ones.