It’s just a church. It’s a two-story yellow-brick building in a crummy but not terrible Chicago neighborhood. There’s red wall-to-wall carpet throughout, and high behind the altar are two modest stained-glass windows. There are three services on Sunday and Bible […]
The House That Wright Built Read More »
Let’s say you want to get married and you’re thinking of joining an Internet dating site. Wouldn’t you want that site to be just a little bit picky? Wouldn’t you want it to eliminate the creepy already-marrieds
An Algorithm for Mr. Right Read More »
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a man of many faces. He’s an old-school ’70s lefty, a man who preached every Sunday in what the American religion scholar Martin Marty has called “greenish African-American pajamas.” He’s an intellectual, a professor who
The Preacher Speaks Read More »
Last spring, NEWSWEEK published a list of the 50 most influential rabbis in America, created and compiled by three nice (and rich and powerful) Jewish media big shots who, it seemed, didn’t have quite enough to do. The aforementioned big
Is Your Rabbi Hot or Not? Read More »
Adam Hamilton does not call himself “pro-choice.” He prefers “pro-life with a heavy heart.” What that means, as he explains in his new book “Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White,” is that he believes abortion should be
How Would Jesus Choose? Read More »
The biblical matriarch Sarah is perhaps history’s most famous infertile woman. As a member of a tribe that valued family above almost anything else, she must have tried every ancient remedy; as a last resort, she gave her maid Hagar
How to Make Sarah Laugh Read More »
(Editor’s note: Barack Obama resigned his membership from Trinity United Church of Christ on May 31, 2008. This story, published in March, profiles the church and some of the problems it presented for presidential candidate Obama.)
Trying Times for Trinity Read More »
When you walk into Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago, the first thing you see on a Sunday morning are the people crowding the lobby, hugging and kissing, asking after each other’s children. The congregation
The Church of Contradictions Read More »
I tried to watch John McCain as he made his victory speech last week, but really, I couldn’t take my eyes off his wife. So thin, so blond, so beautiful in her swept-up hairdo
It’s Not Her. It’s That Marriage. Read More »
Will Bowen takes “uncomplaining” to an extreme. Bowen doesn’t gripe about anything, ever. A reporter asks, “How are you doing?” “Great!” he answers. “Can’t complain.” Really? You can’t complain? What do you do when your car breaks down? “I call