When I first moved to Boston some thirty years ago, The Boston Globe prided itself on being the most liberal newspaper in the country. A joke I heard about then: What will be the very last headline of the Globe? – “World ends tomorrow—women and minorities hit hardest.” Since then the newspaper has been taken […]

For some decades now there has been a debate over the alleged Western bias of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the multitude of activities that have emanated from it. The debate has typically focused on the priority of individual rights over collective or communal rights. The former are supposed to be characteristic of […]

How can a gynecologist manage to have sex?  Presumably by resolutely switching from one mindset to another.  How can a New Testament scholar manage to be a Christian? Presumably by a similar exercise of mental compartmentalization.I don’t know whether there is a literature dealing with the sexual problems of gynecologists (I have no intention of […]

In The Christian Century of March 22, 2011, there is an interesting column by Philip Jenkins, the historian who more than anyone else has drawn our attention to the demographic shift of Christianity to the developing countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia. Under the title “Mexico’s Crisis of Faith”, Jenkins suggests that the present […]

The Copts have featured repeatedly in media reports about Egypt. Before the recent revolutionary events the reports have been about murderous attacks on Coptic churches and homes by Islamic fanatics, unhappily in line with similar attacks on Christians in Iraq, Pakistan and other Muslim-majority countries. There were some uplifting follow-up stories from Egypt—Muslims (including leading […]

I just spent a week in South Africa, attending a fascinating conference of limited “godder” interest. I have been coming to that country for over twenty-five years, watching with empathy its transformation from an odious racist regime to a vibrant democracy. This was a visit after an interval of about three years, and once again […]

Bad Boll is a village in Wuerttemberg, in the southwest of Germany. It is located in the so-called Swabian Alps, a landscape of gentle hills and modest forests, as averse to drama as the proverbially sober regional culture. Yet this village has played an anything but undramatic role in the history of German Protestantism. Johann […]

On February 18, 2011, The Christian Century carried a short piece (Century Marks section, no permanent link available), possibly for the purpose of light entertainment.  During the apartheid period in South Africa an Anglican convent was visited by a prominent theologian. One of the resident nuns informed him: “You church leaders have a big job […]

The icon of Our Lady of Kazan (also known as the Black Virgin of Kazan) is one of the most famous in Russian Orthodoxy.  One of the Virgin’s two feast days coincides with the Day of National Unity. This is appropriate. Kazan occupies an important place in Russian history. Its conquest and destruction in 1552 […]

The global economic crisis has convinced many that the Washington Consensus is “out” and the so-called Beijing Consensus is “in.” As it turns out, three countries—India, Brazil, and South Africa—are leading the way to a new paradigm.