The night before Christ’s birth a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell among robbers.  A priest came down the road and passed him by.  Then a Levite came down the road and passed him by.  Finally, as the sun was going down, a Samaritan traveling down the road saw the [...]

The American Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a longtime Mormon and songwriter, has written a song for Hanukkah. The story (and the video) are covered by Jeffrey Goldberg in the online magazine Tablet.
The song is simple and earnest, avoiding what Goldberg calls the “Adam Sandlerization of Judaism in America.” Hatch celebrates the story without post-modern self-deprecation [...]

In a roundabout way, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is an appropriate movie for the holidays.
Director Wes Anderson has adapted Roald Dahl’s 1970 children’s novel into an exquisite exercise in stop-motion animation. The story is told with miniature puppets, but otherwise largely remains the same. After thieving from three farmers one too many times, the title character [...]

Church Marketing Sucks recently posted about a church near Christmas, Florida that it looking to raise $12 million dollars to build a year-round Christmas theme park for terminally ill children.  Complete with reindeers and Santa, the Covenant Community Church hopes Christmas Dreams can be a good outreach tool for families.  Here’s an excerpt from an [...]

Christmas may be over, but I’m not quite ready to shelve the holiday music just yet. From mid-December to early January in our household, something Christmas-y is almost always playing in the background—growing up, it was a Perry Como Christmas album on my parents’ record player; these days it’s Sufjan Stevens jingling merrily from the [...]

While at a Christmas Eve service last night, in the middle of singing great songs, the pastor pointed out a line in “O Holy Night” he thought has great meaning.  I agree.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices.
So this Christmas, in a year when the economy is sagging and the world seems increasing unstable, [...]

 
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him,
and without him not one thing came into being.

What has come into being in him was life,
and the life was the light of all people.
The light shines in [...]

Is it Christmas time? Or Advent? How should we feel and think about this time of year?
Try this scenario: Right after Halloween, we start planning and stockpiling for the Holiday, with maybe some bonus early shopping.  By late November, just as Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, we burst into full Christmas mode. The decorations go up, the [...]

Pope Benedict XVI told Vatican City pilgrims that he hopes the worldwide economic crisis helps people rediscover “the warmth, simplicity, friendship and solidarity” of the “spiritual meaning of Christmas.”
How will the economy affect your celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth?

I’m used to hearing and seeing certain things this time of year at church.  The Christmas songs are back.  There are Advent candles burning bright.  And there’s a sermon series that’s looking at the problems with the world.  Wait…that last one is something I was not expecting.
Most of the sermons I usually hear this time [...]