The Christian Century back issues from October 2008:
Mislabeled.(Editor's DESK)(religion and politics)
Oct 07, 2008; ... REFLECTING ON the "disestablishment" of the mainline Protestant churches, Walter Brueggemann once observed that those churches and their members are for the time being living in a kind of exile. He offered the further challenging and comforting observation that though exile entails ...
Interfaith friends.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Oct 07, 2008; ... Thanks for Amy Frykholm's article on the interfaith work of the Three Amigos" in Seattle ("Three faiths, three friends," Aug. 26). Along with an ongoing Jewish-Christian dialogue, the United Church of Santa Fe (United Church of Christ) has a 15-year partnership with a Roman Catholic parish ...
Unearthing the Chinese church ...(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Oct 07, 2008; ... Stuart C. Strother's article ("The Chinese at worship," Aug. 26) reminded me of a comment that ! once heard a Maryknoll priest make: "Everything that you have heard about Christianity in China is true somewhere." However, the statement that "the Three-Self movement began in the 1940s" is ...
Fantasy land.
Oct 07, 2008 ... Speakers at the Republican National Convention mentioned God 43 times; speakers at the Democratic Convention, 22 times. One thing was clear: American civil religion is alive and well. At both events God was regularly invoked as the guide and protector of American greatness. John ...
God's chosen.(CENTURY marks)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... GOD'S CHOSEN: A Marxist and a Muslim were having a discussion about Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac in obedience to God's command. The Marxist said that ...
Beyond reason.(CENTURY marks)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... BEYOND REASON: Richard Dawkins, an ardent atheist, and Father George Coyne, retired head of the Vatican Observatory, are good friends. Dawkins claims that Father Coyne once said to him that there is no reason to believe in God and that the only reason he does is because he was raised ...
Homework.(CENTURY marks)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... HOMEWORK: Asked what she thought of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said, "If it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me." Palin might be surprised to know that the Pledge was written not by the founding ...
Color blind.(CENTURY marks)(african american politicians)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... COLOR BLIND? While it is not clear whether Americans are ready to elect an African American as president, pollster John Zogby says that it is not surprising that a black person is running for the highest office in ...
Rain for the just and unjust.(CENTURY marks)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... RAIN FOR THE JUST AND UNJUST: Before the Democratic National Convention held its final session in an outdoor sports arena, Stuart Shepard of Focus on the Family posted an online video asking conservatives to pray that God would send down "abundant rain, torrential rain, ...
Cars and churches.(CENTURY marks)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... CARS AND CHURCHES: The megachurch may represent the church's last effort to indulge the car culture of suburban America: large campuses located near interstates, surrounded by acres of asphalt and accessible only by car. With the high cost of gas and questions about the sustainability of ...
Germ warfare, Part One.(CENTURY marks)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... GERM WARFARE, PART ONE: Most of us take for granted the convenience and health benefits of modern sewage facilities. But 40 percent of the world's population--2.6 billion people--don't have such facilities. As a result, millions of people pick up diseases that kill 1.5 million ...
Germ warfare, Part Two.(CENTURY marks)(hygiene and cleanliness)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... GERM WARFARE, PART TWO: Americans have become obsessed with hygiene and cleanliness. One sign is an increase in the use of personal cleansers and sanitizers. In 2005 $67.3 million were spent on sanitizers, an increase of 54 percent over the previous year. An obsession with bodily ...
Survival of the fittest.(CENTURY marks)(Spore computer game)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST: Antievolutionists may have a new target, Spore, a computer game in which contestants engage in evolving life from the cell on up to higher kinds of organisms. The object of the ...
High "I" factor.(CENTURY marks)(narcissism scale )(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... HIGH "I" FACTOR: A Columbia Business School professor who administers personality tests in his classes was worried that a student who got the maximum score on the narcissism scale ...
Beauty contest for nuns.(CENTURY marks)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... BEAUTY CONTEST FOR NUNS: A priest in Italy, accused of running a beauty contest for nuns, has decided to call it off. He says he was misunderstood: he wasn't about to parade nuns wearing bathing suits. He was interested in judging their ...
If you're Jewish.(CENTURY marks)(Larry Blumberg )(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... IF YOU'RE JEWISH: Larry Blumberg is trying to get more Jews to move to his corner of the Bible Belt. Dothan, Alabama, which is known as the Peanut Capital of the World, is overwhelmingly Christian. Blumberg heads ...
Bush believers.(CENTURY marks)(George W. Bush)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... <Pre> 30 percent of Americans approve of the job President George W. Bush is doing. His supporters, religiously speaking, include: 35% White ...
We should have a strong state and a strong military.(CENTURY marks)(Rev. Vsevolod Chaplin)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008; ... "We should have a strong state and a strong military, for we would then have the will and ability to repel any invasion against our way of life and interests, and our ability to influence events ...
It was as if the whole Republican convention had started drinking.(CENTURY marks)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008; ... "It was as if the whole Republican convention had started drinking Red Bull." --Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention on the ...
Close quarters.(Life in a not-so-big house)
Oct 07, 2008; ... WE HAD A NEW bunk bed delivered recently, and our sons spent a happy afternoon--albeit a dangerous one--wielding socket wrenches and screwdrivers as we put it together. Buying this bunk bed allowed us finally to move the youngest out of our bed, where he has happily parked for the last ...
Cluster bombs.(U.S. declines to join weapons treaty)
Oct 07, 2008; ... IN MAY, representatives of 109 countries met in a soccer stadium in Dublin, Ireland, and agreed to support a treaty to ban cluster munitions. I was present as a member of a delegation from the World Conference of Religions for Peace, and was one of nearly 300 accredited lobbyists in the ...
"... and our hearts are restless ...".(Poem)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008; ... <Pre> " ... and our hearts are restless ..." Pontificating to the very last,I speak my feeble voice to the void,Caught by the lure Abba-Mater has cast. Though wise ones shun a loud iconoclast,Titanic times demand one must be heard,Pontificating to the very ...
How to end torture.(Five steps)(interrogation procedures)
Oct 07, 2008; ... IN MAY 2007 I was a speaker at a conference sponsored by the University of Santa Barbara where one of the other presenters was Darius Rejali, the distinguished torture researcher and analyst. During a break, he turned to me and said, in reference to our own country, "You know, of course, ...
Flexible megachurches rival denominations.(CENTURY news)(Willow Creek and Saddleback Church )
Oct 07, 2008; ... Displaying swift adaptability in the early 2000s, America's largest congregations may be reshaping institutional church life, suggests a national megachurch survey, the third conducted in eight years. "In some sense megachurches can be seen as becoming de facto replacements for ...
Methodist big-church pastors organize to help UMC.(CENTURY news)(United Methodist Church)
Oct 07, 2008; ... The United Methodist Church, like other mainline denominations, is steadily losing members. Yet it has some large, thriving congregations, and about 100 of its churches draw more than 1,200 people on a typical weekend. Sometimes, however, pastors of those big Methodist churches ...
Palin nomination offers peek at Pentecostals.(CENTURY news)(Sarah Palin)
Oct 07, 2008 ... The blogosphere was abuzz with sermon snippets from Pentecostal and charismatic churches once attended by GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. In them, pastors declare that people who die without Christ "have a horrible, horrible surprise" awaiting them and refer to America as a ...
McCain pastor prays for 'very special blessings' on 'prepared' nominee.(CENTURY news)(John McCain's pastor Dan Yeary)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... The confetti and popping balloons had barely subsided at the end of the Republican National Convention when John McCain's media-shy Southern Baptist pastor delivered a closing prayer bordering on a plea for God's endorsement. Dan Yeary, pastor of North Phoenix Baptist Church, ...
Ex-chief of review panel blasts cardinals for handling of abuse cases.(CENTURY news)(Justice Anne M. Burke)
Oct 07, 2008 ... An Illinois Supreme Court justice who chaired a lay review board investigating the Catholic sex-abuse scandal is quoted blasting the church and prominent cardinals in a new book and accusing them of dishonesty. Justice Anne M. Burke, who headed the National Review Board for the ...
ELCA membership drops for 16th straight year.(CENTURY news)(Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... Membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the country's largest Lutheran denomination, has fallen for the 16th consecutive year, the ELCA has announced. While Lutheran churches are growing worldwide--particularly in sub-Saharan Africa--baptized ELCA membership ...
Most Americans believe God can save life--even if diagnosis differs.(CENTURY news)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... A majority of Americans believe that divine intervention can trump doctors' advice in end-of-life cases, according to a new report published in Archives of Surgery. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut, found that 57 percent of adults believe in ...
Florida's Supreme Court rejects ballot initiatives seeking school vouchers.(CENTURY news)
Oct 07, 2008 ... Florida's Supreme Court has tossed out two statewide ballot initiatives aimed at ending a longstanding ban on public funding for religious institutions, drawing praise from church-state watchdogs. Civil liberties groups had filed suit to remove the amendments headed for the ...
W. D. Mohammed, 74, Muslim reformer.(CENTURY news)(Obituary)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... Muslim leaders and community members across the nation mourned the loss of Warith Deen Mohammed, a key African-American figure who worked to unite Muslims of different races to follow an orthodox form of Islam. Mohammed, 74, was the former leader of the Nation of Islam who broke ...
Lit-up Anglican churches go dark in green move.(CENTURY news)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... THE CHURCH of England is telling its members, yes, let there be light--just not so much of it. Reversing an eight-year campaign to brighten up the evenings, the church has come up with new guidelines backed by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams urging parishes to cut back ...
WCC team sees vengeful violence in Georgian area.(CENTURY news)(World Council of Churches )
Oct 07, 2008 ... A World Council of Churches team that included two U.S. clergy returned to the WCC's Swiss headquarters from a visit to Georgia and Russia to describe a state of "lawlessness" in areas of South Ossetia and said humanitarian aid is not reaching people caught up in the conflict. ...
Fearful Christians.(CENTURY news)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: FEARFUL CHRISTIANS: A Christian woman sat outside her destroyed house on August 30 after one of the worst anti-Christian attacks of recent years in India. Hindu mobs went on a rampage after the murder of a Hindu leader, killing 16 people and ...
A New York judge has dismissed the first challenge to a new state policy that recognizes same-sex marriages performed out of state, saying the current policy is in line with state law.(Briefly noted)(Supreme Court judge Lucy Billings)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008; ... A New York judge has dismissed the first challenge to a new state policy that recognizes same-sex marriages performed out of state, saying the current policy is in line with state law. In a ruling September 2, state Supreme Court judge Lucy Billings called the directive "consistent with ...
The Church of Scientology and seven of its members will be tried for fraud and other allegations in a groundbreaking case that could lead to a ban on the church's operations in France, legal sources cited by local media say.(Briefly noted)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... The Church of Scientology and seven of its members will be tried for fraud and other allegations in a groundbreaking case that could lead to a ban on the church's operations in France, legal sources cited by local media say. The allegations, which go back a decade, were originally ...
The Vatican has disciplined one of the promoters of a world-famous Bosnian shrine to the Virgin Mary while it investigates him on charges of heresy and sexual misdeeds.(Briefly noted)(Tomislav Vlasic)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008 ... The Vatican has disciplined one of the promoters of a world-famous Bosnian shrine to the Virgin Mary while it investigates him on charges of heresy and sexual misdeeds. Tomislav Vlasic, a Franciscan priest, has been confined to an Italian monastery and forbidden to make public appearances ...
Living by the word: reflections on the lectionary.(Matthew 22:1-14; 15-22)
Oct 07, 2008; ... Sunday, October 12 Matthew 22:1-14 EVERYONE THINKS it's a good idea to make a difference. Making a difference is the stuff of commencement addresses, strategic plans, electoral manifestos, boardroom platitudes. But making a difference is, to say the least, ...
Border crossing.(Communion at Friendship Park)(Cover story)
Oct 07, 2008; ... AMONG THE LEAST recognized yet most lasting legacies of the Bush administration's "war on terror" has been a dramatic transformation of the U.S.-Mexico border. This transformation is about to reach its symbolic and geographic culmination at Friendship Park, a plaza atop a seaside bluff ...
Calculated blessings.(A visit to John Hagee's church)(Cornerstone Church )
Oct 07, 2008; ... AS I PULLED into the parking lot of John Hagee's Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, I noticed that the person parking next to me was dressed in a purple African-print tunic. The crowd that streamed into the church seemed as racially and ethnically diverse as San Antonio, with a mix of ...
Zoned out.(Faith MATTERS)(Dalton Islamic Center, Georgia)
Oct 07, 2008; ... IN MID-AUGUST I attended the grand opening of the new Al-Farooq Masjid in midtown Atlanta, a complex that includes gardens, fountains, a school and a 46,000-square-foot prayer hall with room for 1,800 worshipers. Along with other guests, I admired the hand-painted dome, the carved ...
Leveling the praying field.(Book review)
Oct 07, 2008; ... The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats Are Closing the God Gap. By Amy Sullivan Scribner, 272 pp., $25.00 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In 2004 the head of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe, was introduced to megachurch pastor Rick ...
Reformation Christianity: A People's History of Christianity, Volume 5.(Book review)
Oct 07, 2008; ... Reformation Christianity: A People's History of Christianity, Volume 5. Edited by Peter Matheson. Fortress, 324 pp., $35.00. I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together." Every child who has ever spent a sultry summer morning at ...
Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think.(Book review)
Oct 07, 2008; ... Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. By John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed. Gallup Press, 230 pp., $22.95. Is it ever justifiable to intentionally target innocent civilians in order to achieve political or military ends? Eighty, 81 and ...
Jesus the Village Psychiatrist.(Brief article)(Book review)
Oct 07, 2008; ... Jesus the Village Psychiatrist. By Donald Capps. Westminster John Knox, 192 pp., $19.95 paperback. What exactly took place when Jesus healed people? According to Donald Capps, who teaches pastoral theology at Princeton Seminary, Jesus did not heal with ...
Thrift: A Cyclopedia.(Brief article)(Book review)
Oct 07, 2008 ... Thrift: A Cyclopedia. Edited by David Blankenborn. Templeton Foundation Press, 360 pp., $34.95 paperback. In an era of rampant consumerism, thrift is hardly a word that rolls off the tongue, and younger people hardly know what it means. But Blankenhorn ...
Journaling as a Spiritual Practice: Encountering God through Attentive Writing.(Brief article)(Book review)
Oct 07, 2008 ... Journaling as a Spiritual Practice: Encountering God Through Attentive Writing. By Helen Cepero. InterVarsity Press, 161 pp., $15.00 paperback. Cepero, director of spiritual formation at North Park Theological Seminary, views journaling as a means of ...
On music.(Sound recording review)
Oct 07, 2008; ... The late Curtis Mayfield integrated music and message in a way that changed history. Four-plus decades after achieving renown, his talent shines in the film Movin' On Up: The Music and Message of Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions (Reelin' in the Years Productions). More than a ...
Man on Wire.(Movie review)
Oct 07, 2008; ... Man on Wire. Directed by James Marsh. Featuring Philippe Petit. On August 7, 1974, around 7:15 A.M., just as New York City was waking up and trudging off to work, a 24-year-old Frenchman was taking a walk on a metal cable that was strung between the twin ...
Notes from the global church.
Oct 07, 2008; ... Any account of the modern expansion of Christianity worldwide must pay respectful attention to Pentecostal and charismatic forms of worship. In Latin America, and most conspicuously in Brazil, this tradition accounts for virtually all of the vast growth of Protestant churches in the past ...
Interfaith dialogue ...(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Oct 07, 2008; ... I am thankful for William Willimon's review of Hans Kung's new book Islam: Past, Present and Future (Aug. 12). Kung's three volumes on Christianity, Judaism and Islam address what appears to be the central issue of our time: there will be no world peace until there is peace between these ...
Looking up when down ...(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Oct 07, 2008; ... Thank you for Barbara Brown Taylor's piece considering how to handle the strains of the economy--it was fraught with meaning and power ("Upside of a downturn," Aug. 12). Before the issue arrived, my wife and I had been discussing this very subject. As a parish pastor for 43 ...
Uncooperative do-gooders ...(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Oct 07, 2008; ... There is a big difference between the food ministry of the Church of the Holy Apostles in New York ("Something Christlike," July 29) and that of Faith United Methodist Church in Accokeek, Maryland (Letters, Sept. 9). The Church of the Holy Apostles serves free lunches in its own space to ...
Considering standards ...(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Oct 07, 2008; ... The news article on the Presbyterian General Assembly's action to remove a clause in the constitution requiring heterosexual marriage or celibacy in singleness gives the impression that it applies only to clergy ("Presbyterians push again for gay clergy," July 29). However, adherence to ...
The Pilgrimage to the New Sanctuary, by Peter Spohn.(ON Art)(Brief article)
Oct 07, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The artist says of this painting that it "celebrates the October afternoon when the whole church family symbolically walked from the old place of worship to the new sanctuary carrying the elements of the church. The foreground shows the parishioners' ...
The founders' failures.(Editor's DESK)(Editorial)
Oct 21, 2008; ... MANY OF THE ISSUES before us in this election year were present at the founding of the nation, as I learned from Joseph J. Ellis's American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic. I have never read such a clear explanation of the conflict between what Ellis calls ...
Relationship education.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Oct 21, 2008; ... In her article exploring a relationship-building class for teens ("Relationship smarts," Sept. 9), Amy Frykholm states that "the Bush administration insists on funding abstinence-only education even though studies question its effectiveness." People will question and studies ...
Food for thought ...(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Oct 21, 2008; ... I appreciated John Buchanan's column "Roots and vegetables" (Sept. 23), as I have also been moved by Michael Pollin's The Omnivore's Dilemma and books with a similar theme published in the past few years. Many of these books read like incarnational eschatology for our age. While foodies ...
Worker rights ...(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Oct 21, 2008; ... The editorial "Revelations in Iowa" (Aug. 26) states that the problem of undocumented immigrants "forced to work long hours in unsafe conditions" was revealed by the recent raids. In 2005 Human Rights Watch issued a detailed report, "Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers' Rights in U.S. Meat and ...
Untruths.(advertising campaigns)
Oct 21, 2008 ... Barack Obama promised to practice a different kind of politics, a politics that would stick to the issues. Yet his campaign has produced an ad that shows an old photo of McCain, wearing an out-of-style suit and large glasses, in an effort to convey the message that McCain is an old, ...
Real preaching.(CENTURY marks)(Brief article)
Oct 21, 2008 ... REAL PREACHING: In a 1948 article, Catholic theologian Yves Congar noted two legitimate complaints to be made about sermons: First, preachers too seldom speak like persons with a spiritual life of their own who are living the ...
True confessions.(CENTURY marks)(Brief article)
Oct 21, 2008 ... TRUE CONFESSIONS: Michael Jinkins, dean of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, says that the pastor of a large evangelical church told him he had decided to do away with a corporate confession in worship services. It's ...
[Cartoon].(CENTURY marks)(Cartoon)
Oct 21, 2008 ... SARAH PALIN IS A GOVERNOR--JUST LIKE PONTIUS PILATE. AND JESUS WAS A COMMUNITY ORGANIZER--JUST LIKE BARACK ...
Politics by other means.(CENTURY marks)(Brief article)
Oct 21, 2008 ... POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS: Lindsey Graham, probably John McCain's best friend in the U.S. Senate, was asked to suggest something unusual about McCain in the context of discussions about Iraq. Graham responded that McCain believes that "some political problems have military solutions." ...