It has now been ten years since Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was released. The movie remains in many ways a cultural barometer of the way Christianity is perceived in America, for better and worse. From the moment Gibson announced his intention to make The Passion, his personal life . . . . Continue Reading »
Years ago, members of a Boulder, Colorado, ministers’ association determined that they were responsible for Boulder’s civic health. Taking a cue from the early chapters of John’s Apocalypse, they resolved to serve as the guardian angels of the city.They began to invite civil . . . . Continue Reading »
From time to time a member of the Christian left will admonish the Christian right to stop obsessing about sex. This is a clever move because in addition to undercutting traditional sexual morality it also suggests that those who are concerned with the topic are acting on some secret ulterior . . . . Continue Reading »
Why do we remember Martha Washington as Lady Washington? Isn’t this the kind of aristocratic pretension that Mister Jefferson taught us to reject? No. Very simply, the wives of the American generals were known as the Lady Washington, the Lady Knox, the Lady Greene, etc., simply as a way of . . . . Continue Reading »
On Passion Sunday, more years than not, I give a children’s sermon. At the conclusion of the procession with palms and the Prayer of the Day, with the kids arrayed near the chancel, I selecte a kid as Jesus. We are going to enact the Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. (Scholars may . . . . Continue Reading »
If April has you in the mood to go on a pilgrimage, be sure to visit “The Little Prince: A New York Story” at the Morgan Library before it closes at the end of the month. The exhibit offers a glimpse at the creative process behind Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s beloved book and . . . . Continue Reading »
One of the many reasons to follow the Lenten station church pilgrimage through Rome is that, along that unique itinerary of sanctity, one discovers otherwise-hidden jewels of church architecture and design, created in honor of the early Roman martyrs. Perhaps the most stunning of these is St. . . . . Continue Reading »
I just got back from giving a lecture at a small liberal-arts college. The tenured professors were complaining. (That, after all, is allegedly what tenure gives professors the unlimited right to do). Their main complaint: Students are no longer doing the reading for “core texts” or . . . . Continue Reading »
My two-and-a-half-year-old son has never liked to be still. Everywhere he goes, he runs. So taking this little rambunctious boy to Mass on Sundays has often been a chore. For months we never made it through an entire liturgy without someone having to take him outside to run. I hated being relegated . . . . Continue Reading »
John Donne, it is clear, is not everyone’s cup of tea. In a notable essay in 1990, Stanley Fish wrote this: “Donne is sick and his poetry is sick. . . . Donne is bulimic, someone who gorges himself to a point beyond satiety, and then sticks his finger down his throat and throws . . . . Continue Reading »
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