“Punishment Comes One Way Or Another”: A Review of True Grit

by Christine M. Hinton Editor's Note: This review contains spoilers. Lots of 'em. Don't read this if you don't want to know how this movie ends.  However, if you've seen it and you're looking for a good movie to reflect on theologically and to maybe share with your congregation, read on… "True Grit": Directed and […]

Better Than That: A Review of Love Wins by Rob Bell

by Lee Hull Moses Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, the highly-publicized book by megachurch superstar/pastor Rob Bell, arrived on my doorstep in the same Amazon delivery as Eugene Peterson’s memoir The Pastor. The heft of the books and the size of the type on […]

How to Tell the Kids It’s All Right: Reviewing the Oscar-Nominated Film

By Audrey Connor Editor's Note: This review contains spoilers.  Not anything you wouldn't get from reading most reviews… but be forewarned.  Also, there's profanity, in a direct quote from the movie.  Though if you've been following the other, wonderful, articles in this month-long focus on sex and love in Fidelia's, you probably don't have the […]

Sex, Ministry and Marie Claire

Our congregational meeting in mid-January was congenial.  Praise God, the church has a strong sense of mission and the books are in the black.  Despite this, throughout the meeting I was unsettled.  There was one significant announcement to make.  Before the closing prayer, I looked the congregation in the eye and said, “One last thing.  […]

Interpreting The Help or How to avoid being racist in the way we’re being not-racist

by Sandhya Jha Editor's Note: This installment of The Jesus Review marks the first in our month-long, publication-wide focus on diversity.  Its subject, the bestselling debut novel from Kathryn Stockett, has been a book group staple for over a year.  The Help tells a story of Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s, but its subject […]

Light in the Darkness: An Advent Playlist

by Leah Grundset I always contemplate how I could make a living creating playlists. Other than being a DJ, I’m not sure this talent is highly desired or sought after in the world. But in my little microcosm of life my friends and I wait for Advent with added excitement. We are waiting for the […]

It Gets Better

by Audrey Connor Editor’s Note: Audrey was recently featured in an article in The New York Times discussing various Christian responses to the rash of suicides among GLBTQI teens this fall.  We asked her to write about the experience of responding to those suicides as part of her ministry, and to offer some thoughts about […]

Poetry as Pastoral Resource: The Art of Losing

At the local library you’re most likely to find me leafing through the new cookbooks or reading up on the latest techniques for the small farmer. (Please note: my local library is in the middle of the suburbs.) Not far from these forms of escapism rest the recently published books of poetry; and you can […]

Let’s Cross Over: Reflections on Eat, Pray, Love

by Katie McKay Simpson I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love cover to cover one Friday in July, sitting in a coffee shop in Bossier City, LA.  I had just moved from Chicago after receiving my first appointment to a United Methodist Church in Northern Louisiana.  The transition had been, for lack of a better […]

The Lilith Fair

by Bromleigh McCleneghan Fumbling Toward Ecstasy provided the soundtrack for my first major mourning period following a high school break-up. Every night of that fall, I put the tape — dubbed off a friend’s CD — in my Walkman and curled up, staring out the window, letting Sarah McLachlan’s richly ethereal voice sing me to […]