Lisa Miller

Beliefwatch: Is It Kosher?

In the beginning, God told the Jews what not to eat: the camel, the coney, the rabbit and the pig; the eagle, the vulture and “all creatures in the seas … that do not have fins and scales” (Lev. 11). Most famously, God said: “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk” (Deut. 14:21). From these and other […]

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An Evangelical Identity Crisis

It was a cold Halloween in Colorado Springs–The high barely hit 27 degrees–as Dr. James Dobson went about his work last week on the sprawling Focus on the Family campus he built in the shadows of the Rockies. From the evangelical organization’s lofty perch (the city sits 6,035 feet above sea level), in the spirit of a day devoted to

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BeliefWatch: Spirit Filled

What does it mean to speak in tongues? And who has the right, or the privilege, to do so? These questions, largely theological, have lingered at the fringes of American Protestantism. Now, as charismatic Christianity sweeps the country and the world, speaking in tongues has become as divisive as it is popular. Earlier this fall, in a sermon at Southwestern

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Beliefwatch: The Atheist

At lunch with Sam Harris, one is struck by how personable, how familiar he seems–a soft-spoken, thoughtful man with pleasant manners, a man who wrote two best-selling books while pursuing a degree in neuroscience. He is, in other words, an unlikely infidel.

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Beliefwatch: On Purpose

Time was, not so long ago, that no one ever said a bad word about Pastor Rick Warren. He was the genius grower of churches, the California whiz who found a magic formula for marketing Christianity to the masses, who hit the jackpot with his book “The Purpose Driven Life,” by some accounts the best-selling nonfiction book ever. The newsweeklies

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Tradition of Suffering

During the third century, in Egypt and throughout the Middle East, men and women fled the cities into the desert, following the example of St. Anthony. They wore simple clothes, ate simple food. They turned their backs on the temptations of urban life, on commerce and innovation

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An Awkward Outing

In the days leading up to the High Holidays, the holiest time of the year in Judaism, a senator running for re-election and a potential Republican candidate for president, announced that, yes, his mother was born Jewish. Here’s what Sen. George Allen said: “I embrace and take great pride in every aspect of my diverse heritage, including my Lumbroso family

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Public Life: ‘St. Jack’ Examines His Conscience–And Party

Jack Danforth once stood at the intersection of religion and politics. He was a moderate Re-publican, three-term senator, diplomat. He is also an Episcopal priest, so pious that his Senate colleagues called him “St. Jack.” With his new book “Faith and Politics,” in stores next week, Danforth–now 70 and retired–positions himself as an outsider. He takes his own beloved party

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A Man and His Myths

In 1949, the year he finished writing “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” C. S. Lewis was leading at least four different lives. His reputation as a Christian apologist had already been launched with several books and a series of BBC radio speeches. He was a charismatic Oxford professor, an expert in Milton and Spenser. He was a generous

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Life In Solitary

In the photo, Agnes Long looks drop-dead gorgeous. She’s on vacation at the Jersey shore with her husband. He is tall, tan and trim; she wears a zebra-stripe bikini, a floppy hat and sunglasses. The sea breeze has blown her platinum hair across her face and she is smiling. The picture says it all. In the mid-1970s, Agnes Long was

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