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In 2004, I was the music director at a congregation with eclectic taste in music. This was exciting--but when it came to navigating copyright compliance, also a bit overwhelming. So [...]

The most brilliant and chilling novel I have read in a very long time is The Memory Monster, by Israeli author Yishai Sarid. The book is written as a report [...]

1 Corinthians 3:1-9 I was born a Baptist. I mean, you can't really be born a Baptist, but I was born to Baptist parents. I grew up in a charismatic [...]

Isaiah 58:1-12 In our three-year lectionary cycle, most Hebrew Bible texts come up once at most. Isaiah 58 is assigned five times. We justice-minded Christians tend to find additional reasons [...]

ROD DREHER'S The Benedict Option touches on an array of subjects, from the decline of the Christian West to the atomizing effects of smartphones to the competing rights claims of [...]

IN MAY, a federal jury sentenced the surviving Boston Marathon bomber to death. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers had acknowledged his guilt and focused on humanizing him in hopes of avoiding a [...]

I WAS BAPTIZED in a swimming pool in my childhood pastor's backyard. I was 12. Asked to make a confession of faith, I mumbled something incoherent through chattering teeth. I [...]

MY SIBLINGS and I have a special fondness for Peter Lutkin's classic setting of the Numbers blessing. We all sang it in high school choir; now we sing it together [...]

WHENEVER I PLAN a Maundy Thursday service, I get annoyed with the lectionary. Why isn't the second reading 1 John 4? I get that Paul's account of the words of [...]

HOW MANY KINDS of music are there? Most teenagers could come up with four or five. An aficionado might list dozens. But ask a church worship committee and you may [...]

IN JANUARY, the National Day of Prayer Task Force changed the logo on its website. The old logo relegated the words 'Task Force' to small type at the bottom. The [...]

RESPONDING TO local critics, Amazon recently dropped its plan to build new 'HQ2' corporate offices in New York City. After enticing numerous U.S. cities to compete publicly for the honor, [...]

Day Burtness and Dan Borek hoped to start an organic farm and community-supported agriculture program at St. Olaf College. But Northfield, Minnesota--a small, two-college town 35 miles south of Minneapolis-St. […]

At a seminar last year, composer and liturgist Marty Haugen led clergy and church musicians in portions of a new Lenten liturgy he composed with Susan Briehl. He noted dryly [...]

Richard Rosenfeld's essay ['What Democracy?' May] is provocative but does not go far enough. The divided structure of our national legislative branch is one of four major undemocratic flaws in […]

NADIA STEFKO and I got married in her hometown, at an Episcopal church we had no particular connection to. 'You are free to personalize the service in a number of [...]

MASS SHOOTINGS are familiar enough now that the aftermath follows a script. One line you can pretty much count on hearing: It's a sin problem, not a gun problem. The [...]

IN JANUARY, not long after my wife began her first parish ministry job, she and I became home owners. Around early April or so I realized that my days of [...]

AN EPISCOPAL PRIEST who, with her husband, brings in about $65,000 a year tells Marketplace that they are lower middle class. A woman posting at dcurbanmom.com identifies her family as [...]

A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed, by Mark Pinsky. Westminster John Knox Press. There are few words thornier than 'evangelical.' It's a broad category that includes [...]

Pastor Peter Hong asserts that Chicago's New Community Covenant Church 'exists to provide an alternative to those tired of religion.' But the four-year-old, ethnically diverse congregation certainly embraces its identity [...]

America's Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System By Steven Brill Random House, 528 pp., $28.00 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] My daughter spent the [...]

Stay Gold First Aid Kit (Columbia) On the Soderberg sisters' third album and their second with producer Mike Mogis, the sound is bigger and lusher, even utilizing strings and winds [...]

Parks and Recreation (Season Five) NBC Washington doesn't come up much on television's best and warmest show about politics, outside a running joke about Joe Biden's sex appeal. Parks and [...]

This Side of Jordan Mandolin Orange [Yep Rot] Another day, another talented Americana songwriter immersed in the language of a faith he doesn't profess. Andrew Marlin, half of the North [...]

THIS PAST SPRING, Mary Louise Bringle revealed in the CENTURY that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) hymnal committee voted against including the popular song 'In Christ Alone' after the copyright holder [...]

Sun By Cat Power Hatador, $7.99 Chan Marshall has struggled with substance abuse, other health problems, crippling stage fright and financial issues. She used to be notorious for her erratic [...]

IN A JUNE column, Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. argued that liberals need to be more direct and explicit about championing the role of government. Political scientist Douglas [...]

FOR SEVERAL YEARS, the CENTURY participated in Amazon.com's affiliate program. By directing readers to the online retailer to buy copies of the books and music we review, we brought in [...]

We Are Rising by Son Lux [Anticon] Earlier this year, NPR's All Songs Considered solicited Ryan Lott, aka Son Lux, for an experiment: could he write and record an album [...]

WHEN HOUSE of Mercy was founded in 1996, having a membership roll wasn't on its radar. 'There were maybe 30 people at church,' explained Debbie Blue, who has copastored the [...]

THE REPUBLICANS are about to take control of the House of Representatives, and House leader-to-be John Boehner (R., Ohio) says their top priority will be creating jobs by cutting government [...]

A Friend of a Friend Dave Rawlings Machine Acony, $13.99 Gillian Welch and her longtime sideman switch places for a loose, mostly acoustic record, with help from members of Old [...]

From Stone to Living Word: Letting the Bible Live Again, by Debbie Blue. Brazos Press. A wise seminary professor once warned those of us anxious to boil the New Testament [...]

The Trumpet Child, by Over the Rhine. Great Speckled Dog When comedian Gracie Allen took up painting, she determined to paint only masterpieces. The gag was that she didn't know […]

Before the Daylight's Shot, by Ashley Cleveland. 204 Records I don't usually expect too much from blues-rock music. It seems that for every well-rooted disciple of the Rolling Stones and [...]

Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading, by Eugene H. Peterson. Eerdmans. I as visiting a church at which pentecostal practices were gaining traction, bringing no [...]

Post-Rapture Radio: Lost Writings from a Failed Revolution, by Russell Rathbun. Jossey-Bass. A few years ago, the 'postmodern memoir' or 'autobiographic novel' was all the rage among critics anxious to [...]

Bluesamericana Keb' Mo' (Kind of Blue) You can call Keb' Mo' a lot of things, but 'unpredictable' isn't one of them. His blues tradition is more down-home than hard-charging, more [...]

Small Town Heroes Hurray for the Riff Raff (ATO) At the height of gangsta rap, commentators lined up to decry the subgenre's violent and misogynistic lyrics. Conspicuously absent was much [...]

Bach Sonata No.1 in G Minor / Partita No. 1 in B Minor Chris Thile (Nonesuch) Chris Thile is equally committed to the mandolin--that oh-so-traditional instrument he plays so uncommonly [...]

Bob's Burgers [Season Three] Fox The Belchers, the family at the center of this animated sitcom, are as ridiculous as the Bluths but far more loving. The show has a [...]

Veep (Season Two) HBO If The Newsroom is The West Wing's pale shadow, Veep is its nemesis. Armando Iannucci's series offers another not-terribly-realistic inside look at Washington, but instead of [...]

Arrested Development [Season Four) Netflix There is good comic timing, and then there is Jason Bateman in Arrested Development. The funniest thing about Mitchell Hurwitz's original Fox series wasn't the [...]

The Mindy Project [Season One] Fox This show relies on its star to carry it, and creator Mindy Kaling delivers as fast-talking, unabashedly girly OB/GYN Mindy Lahiri. Not that the [...]

The Newsroom [Season Two] HBO Dramas get most of the love in this golden age of television, but the comedies deserve notice--and The Newsroom qualifies in that category: it's a [...]

Beautiful Africa Rokia Traora (Nonesuch) Malian singer, songwriter, and guitarist Rokia Traore has long blended West African music with occidental influences. Her fifth album, produced by P. J. Harvey collaborator [...]

The Ash & Clay The Milk Carton Kids (ANTI) Most Americana duos don't sound as much like Gillian Welch and David Rawlings as people say they do. But the Milk [...]

My True Story Aaron Neville (Blue Note) Now in his seventies, Aaron Neville can still locate the incredibly sweet spot between full voice and falsetto. The R&B legend's singing remains [...]