May 2012 - Cultivare

May 31, 2012

Seminary Grads: Christianity Doesn’t Need You. The (Local) Church Does

If I could give a parting word to seminary graduates, that's what I'd say. We...

May 30, 2012

The Comfort of a Colonoscopy

Among the most emailed articles in the New York Times this week is about colonoscopies....

May 29, 2012

The Final Word on Thomas Kinkade

Thomas Kinkade My theological analysis of Thomas Kinkade's work ("The Dark Light of Thomas...

May 28, 2012

Memorial Day

I confess to being one of many who see Memorial Day as the official start...

May 25, 2012

Seminaries and Science

A lot of people are talking about the relation between science and theology lately. Questions...

May 24, 2012

Selling Your V-Card? The Reality Show that Might Have Been

MTV made a splash recently with a online casting call for a provocative reality show...

May 23, 2012

Should Pot Luck Suppers Go Organic?

Here in southwest Minneapolis, where locavores and Lutherans proliferate, the suggestion that church pot luck...

May 22, 2012

The Dark Light of Thomas Kinkade

Hans Holbein the Younger, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, 1520-22, oil...

May 21, 2012

Gratitude to Ada María Isasi-Díaz

I learned earlier this week that one of my professors from graduate school passed away. ...

May 20, 2012

Ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Internet

Today, some 40,000 ultra-Orthodox, male Jews (women not allowed) are packing out Mets Stadium to...

May 17, 2012

We Might as Well Work for Justice: Ada Maria Isasi-Díaz

Ada Maria Isasi-Díaz passed away this past weekend, on Mothers' Day, after a struggle with...

May 16, 2012

A Church’s Expiration Date

Visiting with my grandmother in North Carolina, she bemoaned the decrease of her small Quaker...

May 15, 2012

The Scream, a Stuffed Shark, and the Insecurity of Culture

Last week I took the opportunity of the record sale at auction of Edvard Munch's...

May 14, 2012

Our Christian Identity Crisis

I am reading a book I am interested in using for a class in the...

May 10, 2012

Everything Flows: God’s Breath and Human Bodies

I've been thinking about breath lately. Michelle Voss Roberts, in her fascinating book, Dualities: A Theology...

May 09, 2012

Jesus as An Avenger?

As a kid and a cartoonist, I drew quite a few superheros, the most fun...

May 08, 2012

The Scream

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1895 Last week one of Edvard Munch’s four versions of The...

May 07, 2012

The Art of Seeing

My husband (Mike) and I went to the Rembrandt exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of...