Lord, teach us to pray. Luke 11:1b My private prayer life is chaotic and undisciplined. There, I said it: I’m a minister and seminary dean who doesn’t pray. At least not the way a person who’s heard me pray publicly, on-demand or with preparation, might expect. I pray during worship…

My denomination, the United Church of Christ, claims “continuous testament” as one of its theological pillars. God’s word comes to us through the wisdom we find in holy scriptures. Then, through the activity of the Holy Spirit, that wisdom flows on. In the UCC, we don’t believe that “God Has…

For those among you who know me personally, I hope it comes to you as a terrible shock that some people hate me. Just as surprisingly, there are people I hate. Given how few are on either side of the hatred ledger in my life, I find it hard to…

A tourist in Saudi Arabia parks on a precarious ledge to take a photo of a beautiful view. No one ever sees the picture the car’s driver has taken, but the snapshot of the photographer’s parking choice goes viral. Copycats spring up across the country, and the Saudi Arabian government…

Imagine a multi-generational family gathering hosted in honor of a new baby who has come into the world. Everyone wants to hold the baby, and the baby is passed around from person to person until the crying begins. As soon as it’s clear the baby will refuse to be consoled…

What if Israel and Palestine are acting out a drama today that was written decades ago by forces beyond their spheres of influence? Warring factions might be staging and directing it, but they also constitute two vulnerable parties to the narrative, as is typical when the real culprit is empire. …

In her memoir on chronic illness, The Invisible Kingdom (Riverhead Books, 2022), Meghan O’Rourke fantasizes about her arm having a computer screen built into it. She tells her husband that to have a monitor implanted in her flesh, reading out to her exactly what was wrong with her, and why…

Science-fiction accounts of space travel often describe ways in which the spaceships of the future will travel faster than the speed of light. On Star Trek, the Enterprise can travel at “warp” speed. On Battlestar Galactica, engineers “spool up” the ship’s “FTL (faster than light)” and “jump.” As much as…

From 1804–1809, residents of Massachusetts had access to a triweekly newspaper called The Democrat. In that paper, the following announcement appeared on the front page, above the fold: