John K. Roth, the Psalms of Lament and the Place of Theological Reflection on...
Terrence Tilley, in The Evils of Theodicy, argues against the adequacy of highly abstract theodicies which intentionally distance themselves from pastoral and practice-oriented questions.1 Instead of...
View ArticleBog Psalm
An early medieval Christian psalter was discovered in a northern Ireland bog in 2006. The sun cuts through bog mist like a backhoe as rusty lichens labor beside the oxidizing sheen of swamp water and...
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Facing Suffering: Human Rights Tragedies and the Divine Comedy
I’m going to start with a claim that I can’t actually substantiate but that I hope you’ll entertain as likely or at least interesting: I think that people who watch a lot of human rights documentaries...
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The “Righteous Rich” in the Old Testament
Much is written and preached about the problem of poverty from a biblical perspective, and much of what is written and preached acknowledges the fact that most poverty does not just happen—it is...
View ArticleMeasured Hope: A Meditation on the Third Week of Advent
A couple months ago, I ran across an article in the Atlantic that I thought was a sure fake (Chelsea Fagan, October 18, 2011). I read it once in disbelief; I read it a second time and thought, I must...
View ArticleLearning to Pray
Through twenty years and three kitchens my refrigerator door has been graced by a copy of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day.” On most days, I consider the pivotal lines “I don’t know exactly what a...
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