What is it about the Annunciation that is so captivating? Here's a meditation on how the story of Gabriel's visit to Mary can help us in our own relationship with God .

On Bloggingheads com which provides two people an extended--very extended given the digital age--opportunity to converse nbsp They invited me to have a conversation with Susan Thistlethwaite a UCC theologian at Chicago Theological Seminary and we covered the so-called War on Christmas the

No as Stephen Colbert tells us it s worse than that Jesus is for the poor

Even the Tree has a stylist nbsp According to The New York Times the affluent in New York City are now outsourcing the decoration of homes for Christmas nbsp to a stylist No no NO NO NO nbsp I TOLD you not to use so much TINSEL And that WHITE TREE nbsp Hans what were you thinking

Inside Job the new film on the underlying reasons and the putative villains behind the Great Recession is sure well pretty sure to gain an Oscar nod for best documentary nbsp Which means that America needed to review it for you nbsp Karen Smith our editorial director liked it and w

Are we desacralizing Dec 25 with ldquo Midnight Masses rdquo earlier and earlier the day before nbsp What rsquo s your opinion Over dinner a few weeks ago I spoke with a group of five parish priests about something that had me concerned or at least had piqued my curiosity nbsp What did the

Or how the Nativity would be handled today nbsp H t to Deacons Bench which by the way is now at Patheos com

Face it The war on Christmas is lost When did it end Well there won t be any official declaration of surrender from churches so it s hard to pin down There will be no C E Day Christmas Ends But in my mind the war was decided this year This year almost every major department story put u

Featured on the cover of Time magazine 50 years ago today was a one-time nbsp associate editor of America magazine you might have heard of nbsp The original portrait of John Courtney Murray S J 1904-1967 by Boris Chaliapin one of Time s regular cover artists now hangs in the lobby of Amer