The Christian Century back issues from April 2009:
Wilderness of uncertainty.(Editor's DESK)(Christians and the recession)(Editorial)
Apr 07, 2009; ... THEOLOGIAN N. T. WRIGHT says that even when you are in the Promised Land you are never far from the wilderness. I'm not the only preacher who has pondered how our nation has gone so quickly from the promised land of abundance to a wilderness of economic uncertainty. This recession is a new ...
Earmark excess.(on public expenditures)
Apr 07, 2009 ... Complaining about earmarks is a staple of U.S. politics. The specific projects that members of Congress tack on to spending bills have long sparked public outrage. For most Americans, the idea of building a $320 million bridge from Ketchikan, Alaska (population 7,368), to the island of ...
Exercise your willpower.(CENTURY marks)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... EXERCISE YOUR WILLPOWER: A person working on a difficult puzzle will spend eight minutes more on it if given a bunch of cookies to eat rather than raw radishes. The reserve of willpower is depleted more quickly with the radishes, because most people have to will themselves to eat radishes ....
Thanks to Darwin.(CENTURY marks)(Charles Darwin)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... THANKS TO DARWIN: Mark A. Throntveit and Alan G. Padgett of Luther Seminary argue that Darwin's work frees us to read the Bible on its own terms and helps us to realize that science and the Bible have different, and not necessarily conflicting, agendas. "Science seeks answers ...
God by another name.(CENTURY marks)(Malaysian christians are prohibitied from using the word Allah )
Apr 07, 2009 ... GOD BY ANOTHER NAME: Christians in Malaysia are not allowed to use the word Allah in their publications, but they say that Allah is the only word in Malay for God. They explain that they have used this word for more than 100 years and that it is allowed and widely used in Indonesia and by ...
Been there.(CENTURY marks)(wall street's first collapse)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... BEEN THERE: America's first stock exchange was under a buttonwood tree at the foot of Wall Street. And the exchange's first collapse took place in the spring of 1792. The bubble that burst was the result of actions by financier William Duer, former assistant secretary of the treasury, land ...
Done that.(CENTURY marks)(Enron Corp.'s collapse)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... DONE THAT: The collapse of Enron in 2001 was a sign of things to come. Enron was engaged in a shell game, trading energy commodities while making losses appear as gains. Two years before the collapse, CEO Ken Lay, since deceased, made $42.4 million and was one of the highest-paid ...
Five percent difference.(CENTURY marks)(conductor-composer John Adams)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... FIVE PERCENT DIFFERENCE: Composer-conductor John Adams estimates that 95 percent of a musical performance in the Western classical tradition is dictated by the notation ...
Gaza effect.(CENTURY marks)(influence of the war in Gaza to American universities)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... GAZA EFFECT: The war in Gaza this winter has emboldened pro-Palestinian groups on American university and college campuses. Emory University, where about a third of the undergraduates are Jewish, hosted an "Israeli Apartheid Week," including the controversial Norman G. Finkelstein as a ...
Write on.(CENTURY marks)(health benefits from writing)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... WRITE ON: Researchers have known there are health benefits from journaling, whether the writing is about good experiences or traumatic ones. Researchers at the University of ...
The Great Recession of 2008.(CENTURY marks)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009; ... "The Great Recession of 2008 ... is hurting men more than women. It is hurting homeowners and investors more than renters or retirees who rely on Social Security ...
Attitudes of millennials.(Statistical table)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... <Pre> Attitudes of Millennials * 43% Environment is a top priority 56Gay marriage should be allowed 57Immigrants strengthen our country 61Gays should be ...
Reflections in a spoon.(Poem)
Apr 07, 2009; ... <Pre> Reflections in a spoon Hunger is a bowl of reflected light,a concave mirror of ...
Mainline called uncounted force for change.(CENTURY news)(a survey of Protestant pastors on the government's reform program)
Apr 07, 2009; ... The White House has an oft-over looked religious ally for solving the country's social problems through greatly expanded government programs, if a new survey of senior pastors in mainline Protestant churches is a good indication. Republican politicians and commentators have ...
Giving up online social networks for Lent?(CENTURY news)
Apr 07, 2009 ... Most days you can find college sophomore Adan Farrah on his laptop checking in with his classmates, looking at photos and updating his personal page on Facebook. For the 19-year-old and many of his friends, the social networking site is something close to an obsession. "I'm on ...
Inaugural sermons.(CENTURY news)(Brief article)(Photograph)
Apr 07, 2009 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: INAUGURAL SERMONS: Library of Congress worker Megan Halsband sorts through some of the 250 or so sermons and orations--more than expected--sent to the library's American Folklife Center, ...
Baptist World Alliance slashes its 2009 budget.(CENTURY news)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... Members of the Baptist World Alliance's executive committee, after hearing a sobering financial report detailing investment losses over the last year, agreed to slash the group's 2009 budget by $900,000, or nearly 30 percent. Leaders of the global umbrella organization, meeting ...
Sixty Oregonians died in assisted suicides in 2008.(CENTURY news)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... SIXTY OREGONIANS ended their lives last year by taking a lethal drug dose prescribed under the Death with Dignity Act, state officials have reported. That's the highest annual total in the 11-year history of the law--11 more than in 2007. Deaths from a drug prescribed under the Oregon law ...
Obama ends federal funding ban on stem cell research.(CENTURY news)(President Barack Obama)
Apr 07, 2009; ... With an executive order, President Obama made official what many scientists had long anticipated and many religious conservatives had long feared--he lifted his predecessor's near-total ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. "In recent years, when it comes to ...
Lutheran bishops seek to promote AIDS awareness.(CENTURY news)(Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have joined African religious leaders in publicly undergoing testing to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS and to end a legacy of church stigma and silence on the subject. "We in the U.S. tend to think of this as a global pandemic ...
Vatican opposes faith-based Web addresses.(CENTURY news)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... Establishing Internet domain names based on religion would lead to "bitter disputes" among churches, the Vatican has warned the nonprofit entity responsible for the Internet's naming system. Domain names that refer to religion, such as ".catholic, .anglican, .orthodox, .hindu, ...
The supervisor of New York congregations for the United Church of Christ has been nominated to become the denomination's next general minister and president.(People)(Geoffrey Black)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... The supervisor of New York congregations for the United Church of Christ has been nominated to become the denomination's next general minister and president. Geoffrey Black is expected to be presented to the UCC General Synod this summer as successor to John H. Thomas, who has served since ...
Gideon Byamugisha.(People)(Niwano Peace Prize)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... Anglican priest Gideon Byamugisha, a Ugandan who in the 1990s became the first known African cleric to declare publicly that he was HIV-positive, breaking stigma-induced silence that often hampers combating the illness, has been awarded the Niwano Peace Prize. The award, often seen as a ...
Robert E. A. Lee.(People)(In memoriam)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... Robert E. A. Lee, the Lutheran film executive behind the Oscar-nominated films Martin Luther, which stirred Catholic-Protestant tensions in the 1950s, and A Time for Burning, a mid-1960s civil rights documentary, died of cancer February 27 at his home in Baldwin, New York. He was 87. A ...
Leon Howell.(People)(In memoriam)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... * Leon Howell, 73, the last editor and publisher of the journal Christianity and Crisis, which folded in the 1990s, died February 26 at his home in Silver Spring, Maryland, according to his family. A member of the United Church of Christ and holder of an M.Div. degree from New York's Union ...
Marking a milestone.(CENTURY news)(celebrating the 50th anniversary of Tibet's uprising against China)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: MARKING A MILESTONE: Tibetan monks and activists pray during a candlelight vigil at Liberty Square in Taipei March I0 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising ...
Reflections on the lectionary.(LIVING BY The Word)(Essay)
Apr 07, 2009; ... Easter Sunday April 12 John 20:1-18 IN HIS COLLECTION of poems titled After the Lost War, Andrew Hudgins chronicles the life of a Confederate soldier during and just after the Civil War. In "What Light Destroys," the soldier fondly recalls a camping trip he once took ...
Stand and deliver: performers in the pulpit.(performers and pastors)(Essay)
Apr 07, 2009; ... AT THE ANNUAL BANQUET of the University of Chicago Divinity School, a first-year student knocked 'em dead with a stand-up comedy routine. But then Rebecca Anderson has had some practice: she was a stand-up comic. "When I tell people here I grew up in a fundamentalist family, ...
Poll watching: Tova Wang on election reform.(Interview)
Apr 07, 2009; ... POLITICIANS AND ACTIVISTS were making sweeping accusations about voter fraud during the 2008 election season, warning that thousands of illegitimate registrations had been submitted and that election theft was immiment. Is the registration system vulnerable to fraud? How can it be ...
Congregational snapshot: four church trends.(National Congregations Study)
Apr 07, 2009; ... PROBABLY EVERY CHURCHGOER can say how his or her church is changing or has changed. It is much more difficult to know whether the experience of any particular congregation fits into a larger pattern. We need a bird's-eye view to answer such questions. The National Congregations ...
Lessons before dying.('Nothing to Be Frightened Of,' 'The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead,' and 'Mrs. Hunter's Happy Death: Lessons on Living from People Preparing to Die')(Book review)
Apr 07, 2009; ... Nothing to Be Frightened Of. By Julian Barnes. Knopf, 256 pp., $24.95. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead. By David Shields. Knopf, 225 pp., $14.95 paperback. ...
A saint for hard times.(Faith MATTERS)(Column)
Apr 07, 2009; ... I'VE BEEN WONDERING who would be a good patron saint for the deepening recession in which we find ourselves. The obvious candidates are those paragons of frugality who learned to live without a steady income or the comfort of regular meals. St. Francis, who threw off his clothes and took ...
Text messages.(Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, vol. 1 - Advent Through Transfiguration)(Book review)
Apr 07, 2009; ... Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Volume 1: Advent Through Transfiguration. Edited by David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Westminster John Knox, 472 pp., $39.95. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Though it has ...
Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America.(Book review)
Apr 07, 2009; ... Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America. By John G. Turner. University of North Carolina Press, 304 pp., $19.95 paperback. If you're looking for a book that will either vilify or canonize Bill Bright and ...
No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims About Jesus.(Book review)
Apr 07, 2009; ... No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims About Jesus. By Susan R. Garrett. Yale University Press, 352 pp., $30.00. Theologians and biblical scholars don't usually trespass into popular religion. That tends to be the territory of religion ...
Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire.(Book review)
Apr 07, 2009; ... Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. By William T. Cavanaugh. Eerdmans, 115 pp., $12.00 paperback. Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire is a deceptively short yet theologically deep book. As William Cavanaugh inquires how Christians ...
Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Living Through the Lord's Prayer.(Book Marks)(Brief article)(Book review)
Apr 07, 2009 ... Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Living Through the Lord's Prayer. By Telford Work. Eerdmans, 276 pp., $16.00 paperback. Despite the flippant title, this is a serious theological meditation on the Lord's Prayer which serves also as a commentary on today's social ...
Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life.(Book Marks)(Brief article)(Book review)
Apr 07, 2009 ... Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life. By John Adams. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 352 pp., $26.00. Composer-conductor John Adams (born 1947) was raised in New England by parents more interested in making music than money. His father, a clarinetist, ...
Coraline.(Movie review)
Apr 07, 2009; ... Coraline. Adapted and directed by Henry Selick. The entrancing animated feature Coraline, faithfully adapted by Henry Selick from Neil Gaiman's marvelous children's novel, is an Alice in Wonderland story. The feisty, sharp-witted Coraline (voiced by today's busiest ...
Verabschiedung ("Departing"), Mantelspende ("Giving of the Coat"), Krankenpflege ("Care of the Sick").(ON Art)(artists donate their works to the church)(Brief article)
Apr 07, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] (from left to right) Verabschiedung ("Departing"), Mantelspende ("Giving of the Coat"), Krankenpflege ("Care of the Sick"), by Neo Rauch In recent years several of Europe's major artists have engaged the church, displaying their work at such ...
The end is life.(Editor's DESK)(resurrection)(Editorial)
Apr 21, 2009; ... EVERY YEAR we preachers eagerly look for help with the daunting challenge of preparing an Easter sermon. Never are we as acutely aware of our own limitations, intellectual and spiritual, as when we try to find words to express the reality that a dead man didn't remain dead. A ...
Music for worship.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Apr 21, 2009; ... As someone who has been using nonsacred music in worship for years, but never for the purpose of "cultural relevance and outreach," I thought Frank Burch Brown's "Worship mismatch" (March 10) really missed the mark. A great song is a great song regardless of its genre, and virtually all ...
AIG scapegoats.(American International Group Inc. )
Apr 21, 2009 ... A lot of outrage, including threats of physical violence, has been directed at executives of the American International Group and other financial-services firms. The executives are perceived as having triggered the worldwide economic crisis by their reliance on subprime mortgage-backed ...
[Cartoon].(CENTURY marks)(Cartoon)
Apr 21, 2009; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHAT'S BEST FOR THE ...
Corrections.(Correction notice)
Apr 21, 2009 ... Browne Barr, whose death was noted in the March 14 issue, was 91 years old, not 71 as reported. Leon Howell, ...