“Reign of Christ” Sunday (also known as “Christ the King”) is the final week in the Christian liturgical calendar. The cycle of lectionary readings begins again the next week with the first Sunday of Advent, which is “New Year’s Day” according to Christian sacred time. For anyone interested in becoming more attuned to the rhythms of the Christian liturgical seasons, I recommend the increasingly-popular Christian Seasons Calendar produced as an annual project of a church in Canada. When I reflect... Read more

The first time I remember hearing Ram Dass’ famous mantra “Be Here Now” was at a David Wilcox concert in Asheville, North Carolina at a club named Be Here Now. At that time, I did not know that the phrase was popularized in Ram Dass’ book of the same title. Now almost four decades after the publication of his bestselling Remember, Be Here Now — the Harvard psychology professor who traveled to India and became a world-renown spiritual teacher  — has published a new book... Read more

My Southern Baptist heritage — rather than leading me to embrace the social views of the “Religious Right” — instead formed me in the long run to be sympathetic with the perspective of the Anabaptists and the Radical Reformation, often associated with renegade groups like the Mennonites and the Amish, who have been known to risk their lives to embody the way of life Jesus described in places like “The Sermon on Mount” (Matthew 5-7). You quickly find yourself talking... Read more

Roland Bainton, the 20th-century church historian who taught for many years at Yale, wrote the following famous paragraph about Luther: Luther took no steps to spread his theses among the people. He was merely inviting scholars to dispute and dignitaries to define, but others surreptitiously translated the theses into German and gave them to the press. In short order they become the talk of Germany. What Karl Barth said of his own unexpected emergence as a reformer could be said... Read more

As I read some of the coverage of the Wikileaks documents, “a trove of secret field reports from the battlegrounds of Iraq” released widely this weekend, the sentence that stood out to me the most was that, “Civilians have borne the brunt of modern warfare, with 10 civilians dying for every soldier in wars fought since the mid-20th century, compared with 9 soldiers killed for every civilian in World War I, according to a 2001 study by the International Committee... Read more

Yesterday I criticized Christine O’Donnell’s “aggressive ignorance” of the First Amendment. I do not expect all politicians to have the Constitution memorized, but I do expect a basic familiarity with the most important parts such as the First Amendment, which enshrines some of our most basic and cherished freedoms: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to peaceably assemble, and freedom to petition the government. Moreover, O’Donnell is a candidate for the United States Senate (for... Read more

Have you actually studied the Bible for yourself, on your own terms? If not, let’s talk once you’ve read the text. Have you actually studied the Constitution for yourself, on your own terms? If not, let’s talk once you’ve read the text. I make these points in the wake of senate candidate Christine O’Donnell’s shocking lack of familiarity with the Constitution. A journalist at NPR called her understanding of the first amendment “aggressively ignorant.” In a debate yesterday, ironically held at... Read more