Mary among the Mothers of Israel

Over the past twenty centuries, Mary, the mother of Jesus, has accrued an extraordinary range of titles and images: from the ever-virgin to the mother of God, from the lady of sorrows to the queen of heaven. Such accolades are more or less warranted by the New Testament writings.

What has been largely absent from mariological interpretation and innovation, however, is the entire span of Old Testament writings. Her firstborn son has been amply documented and defended as Messiah, Lord, Savior, and God from the Scriptures of Israel, but little effort has gone into interpreting his mother from the same sources… Keep reading

Agatha Christie, A Very Elusive Christian

The most notorious episode of Agatha Christie’s life took place late in 1926, in the wake of her husband Archie Christie’s request for a divorce so he could marry another woman, Nancy Neele. Plunged into what we might now call a fugue state, Agatha left home in her car, which she later abandoned, perhaps after an abortive suicide attempt. She walked to a local train station, traveled to London and then northwards, ending up at a resort in Harrogate in Yorkshire. She checked in under the poignant false name of Teresa Neele.

Her family, the police, and the public went nuts. For eleven days they could trace neither hide nor hair of her. This was the dawn of the paparazzi, who cheerfully exploited a mysterious disappearance — and, as a bonus, the disappearance of a mystery author. Theories for her vanishing ranged from Archie having murdered her to Agatha staging her own faked death to shame him, or possibly to boost sales. Volunteers (among them fellow mystery author Dorothy L. Sayers) joined local authorities in raking over her home region for a clue, any clue, as to her whereabouts… Keep reading

Oh Good Grief! A Review of The Complete Peanuts
by Charles M. Schulz

First things first: The Complete Peanuts is not yet complete. This ambitious project of reprinting fifty years’ worth of daily strips—some never before reprinted, some “lost” in archived newspapers until now—began in 2004, with four years’ worth of strips published in two volumes every year. Whether you are a Peanuts scholar or merely a passionate fan, it’s a dream come true. No more frustrations at the non-sequiturs caused by other less complete collections’ random deletion of key strips in a sequence… Keep reading

Still Reckoning with Luther

Most towns in the former East Germany have gotten a face-lift in recent years, but none so diligently and lovingly as Lutherstadt Wittenberg. The would-be pilgrimage site was cut off from most of its constituency for 40 years, and when the Berlin Wall came down and the iron curtain was drawn aside, it was hardly ready to receive the flood of eager pilgrims... Keep reading

Searching for a Church: Life on the Ecclesiastical Frontier

Sometimes ecclesiological wisdom pops up in the unlikeliest of places. Reading through Taoism-influenced Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea for the umpteenth time, I couldn’t help noticing that her wizards—the best of whom are trained on the isle of Roke in the center of the Archipelago before scattering to heal, protect and guide far-flung communities—are for all intents and purposes the pastors of Earthsea...
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Seminary Sanity

When you start out at seminary with an eye toward entering the ministry, the first thing they want to know about you is not whether you believe in God, or pray, or go to church. The first thing they want to know is whether you are a loony-toon. And so, in a move that may or may not make sense, they bustle you off to a psychological evaluation to find out. This is mildly irritating to someone like me who believes in God, prays, goes to church, and wonders how much sanity has to do with any of it...
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Eat the Scroll

I have only two theses to advance, not ninety-five. Thesis 1: in popular memory and usage, Luther the historical figure is far more important than Luther the theologian, to the point that the former has all but obscured the latter. Thesis 2: However, in truth and from the perspective of Christian faith, Luther the theologian is far more important than Luther the historical figure, to the point that one might wish to obscure the history that his theology might come more readily forward... Keep reading

The Towpath

I used to have a singularly long and skinny backyard, thirty-six miles from end to end and about ten feet wide: the towpath along the Delaware and Raritan Canal. Sometimes I shared it with others, on Sunday afternoons with the leisurely sorts and at either end of the workday with the jogging sorts. The canal was dug by Irish immigrants in the 1830s, and for the next hundred years or so mules and boats toted coal up the canal from the Delaware River at Bordentown to the Raritan River at New Brunswick… Keep reading