Features
The church under Putin: Nationalism and Russian Orthodoxy
The Orthodox Church aligns itself closely with the government. Yet its leaders have also offered some help to movements that challenge the status quo.
Room at the inn? Syrian refugees hope for hospitality
Aid organizations are overwhelmed by the scale of the current mass migration from the Middle East. So the work has fallen on other volunteers.
Christmas picks
Brian McLaren, Sara Miles, Chris Wiman, and others make their selections.
One Abraham or three? The conversation between three faiths
Can "Abrahamic" replace "Judeo-Christian"? And without sacrificing the integrity of three different traditions?
Debbie Blue's Christmas picks
I’ve been engrossed in The Story of the Lost Child, the fourth in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels (Europa Editions). The series follows the friendship of Elena (the narrator) and Lila (her fiery and fearless friend) from girlhood to old age. Very little of what we find precious (romance, marriage, career, motherhood) remains intact here—all of it is mined with refreshing and ferocious honesty. The novels dredge up what we might rather keep hidden: the human propensity for competition, rivalry, and profound insecurity.
Books
Material values
Scott Dannemiller narrates his family's year of simpler living. By the end, he acknowledges that "stuff" is not bad.
The Religion of Democracy, by Amy Kittelstrom
Amy Kittelstrom examines the overlapping ideas, personalities, and relationships of seven figures associated with what she calls the American Reformation.
Brian McLaren's Christmas picks
Diana Butler Bass’s new book Grounded (HarperCollins) is at the top of my 2015 gift list....
Francis Spufford's Christmas picks
Over the last year I polished off the last novels I hadn’t read by Penelope Fitzgerald and worked my way one bomb of perceptive wit at a time through Lorrie Moore’s stories (her latest collection i...
Sara Miles's Christmas picks
Christmas has never been my favorite of the ostensibly Christian feast days; its manic gift-giving enterprise fills me with a mixture of crabbiness, confusion, and despair....
Chris Wiman's Christmas picks
A couple of years ago I ordered a book by Jen Hadfield on the strength of a vividly disgusting couplet I came across somewhere or other: “Under the broiler / turned sausages ejaculate.” (That’s ...
Sarah Morice-Brubaker's Christmas picks
Jes Baker’s Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A Handbook for Unapologetic Living (Seal Press), will be a handy book to have around in early January, when our culture’s annual rites of bo...
Afghan morass
In two books on Afghanistan, Anand Gopal and Carlotta Gall each point to the absurdity of America's longest war.
Reggie Williams's Christmas picks
Kelly Brown Douglas is an accomplished scholar with a prophetic theological voice that speaks to Christians in the pews and the theological academy....
Chris Hoke's Christmas picks
Two months ago my wife and I walked downtown to see Mr. Holmes, with Sir Ian McKellen playing an aging version of the science-conquers-superstition Sherlock Holmes....
Terra Brockman's Christmas picks
My Christmas picks take you from the soil to the supper table. The essays in Dirt: A Love Story (ForeEdge Books) celebrate the mystery and meaning of soil....
Thomas Lynch's Christmas picks
I recommend Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Mothers, Tell Your Daughters (Norton), a selection of short stories about mostly hardscrabble, down-market women in southwestern lower Michigan....
Brian Doyle's Christmas picks
Novels that rattled and moved me in the last year or so include Anthony Doerr’s terrific World War II novel All the Light We Cannot See (Scribner)....
Debbie Blue's Christmas picks
I’ve been engrossed in The Story of the Lost Child, the fourth in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels (Europa Editions)....
Our Kids, by Robert D. Putnam
Balancing biography and quantitative research, Robert Putnam paints a sobering picture of the state of the American dream.
Departments
Baptism of Christ, by Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378–1455)
In 1401, Lorenzo Ghiberti won the competition held by the Arte di Calimala, the guild of importers and finishers of woolen cloth, to decorate the north doors of the baptistery in Florence....
Zechariah’s problem
A preacher's nightmare is to be in front of an eager congregation and realize your notes are missing. No wonder one of my favorite Bible stories is about a clergyperson who's rendered speechless.
Knee-deep in renewal
Anyone can see the rippling effects of God's kingdom in buildings, movements, and practices. I couldn't comprehend it all without Diana Butler Bass.
The church in the whirlwind
At a reunion of our seminary's class of 1965, I talked to pastors who grieve that they have not left the mainline church better than they found it. They were faithful to their moment, but that moment blew away.
We’re all geeks now
It could have been any academic conference—except that Catwoman was on my left and a fully dressed hobbit was on my right.
Emissions control
Going into the Paris climate summit, many nations remain sketchy about their commitments. But several things are new since the Kyoto Protocol.
News
René Girard, scholar of religion and violence, dies at 91
René Girard, a French scholar best known for his work on desire, violence, and religion, died November 4 at age 91....
Fear and faith mingle after attacks in Paris and Beirut
The Sunday after the worst terrorist attacks in European history left at least 129 dead and 352 wounded in Paris, people packed into churches that are normally empty, lit candles at the sites of the attacks, and gathered in public plazas even thou...
Chiune Sugihara, diplomat who saved WWII refugees, remembered with exhibit, film
Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who saved thousands of Jewish refugees during World War II, is finally getting his due....
Michael Curry installed as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church
Declaring that “God has work for us to do,” Bishop Michael Curry was installed as presiding bishop of the 2.5 million-member Episcopal Church November 1 at the Washington National Cathedral....
Andover Newton seminary to sell campus
America’s oldest graduate seminary is once again blazing a trail for other mainline Protestant institutions to follow. But this time it’s a path many would rather not travel....
Muslim-majority council may be first in U.S.
Residents of Hamtramck, Michigan, have elected a Muslim majority to their city council, symbolizing the demographic changes that have transformed the city once known for being a Polish-Catholic enclave....
Study shows steady levels of religious practice
The number of nonreligious people in America is increasing, but the faithful remain observant, according to the second part of the 2014 U.S. religious landscape study from the Pew Research Center, released in November....
Turkish religious movement secretly funded travels for lawmakers and staff
A Turkish religious movement has secretly funded as many as 200 trips to Turkey for members of Congress and staff since 2008, apparently repeatedly violating House rules and possibly federal law, an investigation has found....
Lectionary
December 24-25, Nativity of the Lord: Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)
There are many ways we receive the gift of Jesus badly.
December 20, Fourth Sunday of Advent
Mary is a jazz singer, improvising on a familiar tune.
December 13, Third Sunday of Advent: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18
The tension between the joy of the first three readings and the judgment of the Baptizer’s proclamation is theologically instructive. It presses us to hold the two together.