Essay

Bachman Back to Kuyper? Now that Michelle Bachman has dropped her campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, perhaps we can put to rest—again—a genealogy used to explain her political faith. Bachman, it is said (for instance, in Ryan Lizza’s…

Now that Michelle Bachman has dropped her campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, perhaps we can put to rest—again—a genealogy used to explain her political faith. Bachman, it is said (for instance, in Ryan Lizza’s profile of her in…

Shortly after I got married, I made a “stunning” discovery (one of many to follow!): my spouse did not find the content of his work to be a primary source of meaning or purpose in life. In fact, it was…

The kids are not all right.  That is the evidence-based, data-driven picture that is emerging from sociologist Christian Smith's National Study of Youth and Religion.  His account of the paucity of moral reasoning among twentysomethings can't be chalked up as…

So The Twelve-Reformed Done Daily is moving into its third month.  So far.  So good.  I’m told readership is strong and growing, although it can be a bit unsatisfying to post something and not receive much or any response.  Is…

Books lying around the house are never safe from my readerly omnivory.  So naturally I grabbed up the book my husband received from his brother this Christmas: Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of…

Case closed.  I'm an Iowan, once upon a time a Republican, and I am at this moment endorsing a candidate.  (Now please stop calling.)  I'd be walking across the floor at the caucus meeting when Ron Paul's name is announced…

Perhaps it was because of Dorothy. The day prior having completed the funeral committal service five years in the making. Is it wrong as a minister to have had a favorite funeral? Or maybe better put, a favorite parishioner? Dorothy…

The incarnation – This is the heart of my theology. The flesh: body, feelings, thinking, desire, touching, fighting colds, crying because of joy, butterflies in the stomach, eating healthy foods, drinking bold red wines, bruised knees, the mystery of walking…