Down on the Ashram

Most people who work with the Hebrew Bible are familiar with Robert Alter. Alter is a literary scholar who has written many influential books, one of which, The Art of Biblical Narrative, has been …

It is an unassuming Catholic priest, Father Quintana (Javier Bardem), that ultimately makes To the Wonder radiate…The priest makes his rounds in the impoverished neighborhoods of the little exurban Texas town, where he listens with the humility of a Zosima. But all the while we hear his troubling meditations. He does not feel the presence of the God he serves. He feels only God’s absence. He ambles in a spiritual desert. Father Quintana, like Marina, experiences the sinking and withering one feels in the spiritual vacuum of withholding.

JERUSALEM (AP) An ancient limestone tablet covered with a mysterious Hebrew text that features the archangel Gabriel is at the center of a new exhibit in Jerusalem, even as scholars continue to argue about what it means.

This post is my transcription of a recent lecture by Ted Jennings, with some minor additions, posted with his permission. Latin America has a unique situation that distinguishes the theology that i…

Conversations for Ministry Leaders

One of the biggest hurdles to orthodox Christian belief in our world today is affirmation of the bodily resurrection of Jesus as historical reality. After all we know better than this. Isn’t it a m…

Within about four minutes of announcing our yearlong series on Sexuality & the Church , I realized I was in over my head. You just don’€™t realize how many books there are to read, angles to take, and people to interview until you€’ve gone and committed to yourself to exploring a multi-faceted, hot-button issue like this one. So I emailed Richard Beck (and some others writers I respect) and asked for help. Richard’€™s blog, Experimental Theology , consistently falls into my personal Top 5 list and I can’€™t recommend it enough. Richard is a psychologist, and so his reflections on theology, the Bible, church, community, and spirituality always include some new angle I never considered before. (For example, recently he’s been discussing€œ the impossibility of Calvinistic Christian psychotherapy!) I had the privilege of meeting Richard and his awesome wife Janna when I visited Abilene Christian University a few years ago. Richard is Professor and Department Chair of Psychology there.

Phil Robertson on Faith

Gay marriage is a lightning rod issue these days. We talk with bridge-builder Andrew Marin about how the church can respond to this issue without getting burned.

Sunday morning church services are still a very segregated hour. Is that okay? Is it okay for white American Christians to go celebrate God at one church and black American Christians to go celebrate God in another church? Should changing that reality be on our radar, an idea on our to-do list? I honestly don’t know the answer to that question.

The implications of allowing women to teach “indirectly.”