Football and politics have something in common these days besides combat. Each wrestles with the role religion plays in its game.
Giving thanks
By David Gushee In this Thanksgiving week, your curmudgeonly controversialist has chosen to give thanks rather than — this one time — make any more trouble. I am grateful to God for: — Reaching out to me and saving me…
A new angle on Advent
By Ken Sehested Reformation Sunday generally has a hard time competing with Halloween — except, maybe, for our Lutheran friends. Six years before Luther commenced his Ninety-Five Theses’ complaint with the Roman church, an earlier but lesser-known reform movement took…
Separate and unequal
By Bill Leonard When Jim Crow segregation laws ruled the American South, their classic defense lay in the phrase, “Separate but Equal,” meaning that while the races were divided, their facilities and services were supposedly the same. Of course everybody…
Fred Shuttlesworth and Steve Jobs
By Bill Webb They both died on Wednesday, Oct. 3. One man was well-known for his creativity and technological innovation. But many people might not have known the other individual, who stood with Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy…
The sociology of Sunday school
By Bill Leonard These days, clergy and laity, professors and students alike generally agree that basic knowledge of the Bible is fast disappearing among Americans conservative, moderate and liberal. Indeed, in recent years I have occasionally received notes from undergraduate…
A guide to the Jewish fall holy day season
By Rabi Rami Shapiro We Jews are in the early weeks of our fall holy day period. There are three parts to this season that are of spiritual interest: Selichot, Yamim Noraim and Sukkot. The month of Elulis is the…