I, as well as the rest of the world, was saddened to hear of the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu on the day after Christmas. Tutu, who won the Nobel Prize in 1984, was a powerful voice for change in South Africas anti-apartheid movement; he used his pulpit and spirited oratory to help bring down apartheid in South Africa and then became the leading advocate of peaceful reconciliation under Black majority rule. I particularly appreciated Tutu’s theology, which was both... Read more
Among the many striking images that we have all seen in the year that has passed since the January 6th insurrection are numerous Christian symbols (crosses, flags, signs, banners) interspersed with all manner of conservative political and social symbols carried and worn by people bent on violence, chaos, and mayhem. A few days after the the insurrection, the New York Times published an article by Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham entitled “How White Evangelical Christians Fused With Trump Extremism.” Here’s... Read more
One year ago, a mob of insurrectionists stormed and temporarily occupied the U.S. Capitol building in an attempt to stop Congress from fulfilling its Constitutionally mandated duty of certifying the results of the November 2020 presidential election. “It wasn’t pretty” is an understatement. I suspect that “1/6” will become as memorable as “9/11” and “12/7” as days in American history that will live in infamy. I also suspect that the news and social media today will be filled with more... Read more
One of the texts that I regularly use in my ethics classes is a collection of essays and interviews that have been posted over the past decade on The New York Times’ “Opinionator” blog. In several of these interviews Gary Gutting, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, explores the topic of whether belief in something greater than ourselves is rational with several contemporary academics whose work intersects with such questions. One of these interviews is with... Read more
In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. John 1:1, 14 “In the beginning . . .” ranks right up there with “Once upon a time . . .” as one of the best-of all-time intro lines to a story. On this, the first Sunday of 2022, the gospel reading is John 1:1-18, a beautifully poetic introduction to the greatest story ever told. Because the language is poetic rather... Read more
Happy New Year! It is thirteen years since I arrived on a sub-zero January day—President Obama’s 2009 inauguration day, in fact—at the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research in Collegeville Minnesota for a semester-long sabbatical as a resident scholar. The experience changed my life; I have spent the subsequent years, including more than nine on this blog, exploring and discovering the ways in which these changes have and continue to worked their way into my day to day reality.... Read more
Although today is the next-to-last day of 2021, I am writing ten days earlier on December 20. That’s because today Jeanne and I are returning from Tampa after a five-day cruise to Cozumel and other points of interest on the east coast of Mexico. Since even I am not likely to spend much time on our first-ever cruise writing, I’ve chosen to get everything ready on the blog early for the rest of the year. That doesn’t mean, of course,... Read more
Today on the liturgical calendar is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the day that commemorates King Herod’s ordering the slaughter of the male children under two years old in Bethlehem in an attempt to eliminate the newborn Messiah who was rumored to have been born there. I have written about this gruesome part of the New Testament narrative before, focusing on the text from the haunting medieval “Coventry Carol”: Herod the king, in his raging, Charged he hath this... Read more
Each week for many years, Garrison Keillor told “Prairie Home Companion” listeners the news from Lake Wobegon, where “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” I’ll bet the Holy Family was like that. Lots of people think their children are well “above average”—hence, the bumper stickers in which parents boast that they are the “Proud Parents of an Honor Student at _________.” Everyone thinks their child is precocious and the smartest/best... Read more
Christmas movies are a big deal at my house. Jeanne goes for the classics, such as “Miracle on 34th Street,” “The Bishop’s Wife,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and (her favorite) “White Christmas.” Those are all fine (except “White Christmas,” which I can take or leave), but I tend to favor more recent ones, like “The Holiday,” ” Love Actually,” and (my favorite) “The Nativity Story.” Movies with Biblical themes were both attractive and problematic in my early years. We did... Read more
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