In his essay “Lutheran Pietism and Catholic Piety,” found in the collection The Catholicity of the Reformation, church historian Robert Louis Wilken argues that Lutheran pietism was in part an attempt to recover some of the features of medieval piety that had been swept aside by the Reformation. Johann Arndt, the grandfather of Lutheran pietism,…

The Resurrection, Matthias Gruenwald, 1515

Episcopal Church holds “U2 Eucharist.”

Thomas at Endlessly Rocking: The Church reads the Scriptures to remember who Jesus is. “The Scandal and Victory of the Cross” at Connexions. And, at The Ivy Bush, why Easter is still weird.

Matthew Yglesias has smart things to say about saber-rattling on Iran at the Weekly Standard. Michael Kinsley at Slate reviews the resounding success that is America’s history of intervention in the Middle East. At Reason, Christopher Preble questions whether U.S. intervention in Darfur is a good idea.

O come and mourn with me awhile;And tarry here the cross beside;O come, together let us mourn;Jesus, our Lord, is crucified. Have we no tears to shed for Him,While soldiers scoff and foes deride?Ah! look how patiently He hangs;Jesus, our Lord, is crucified. How fast His hands and feet are nailed;His blessed tongue with thirst…

The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, venerable anti-war and civil rights activist, passed away yesterday. Here’s a profile from PBS’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly.

This article by Matthew Rothschild at The Progressive estimates the human cost of using “merely” a tactical, “bunker buster” nuke on Iran. Terrifying stuff. (via Conservative Green)

Matthew Yglesias has a good article on what’s wrong with the concept of “guest worker” programs: The details of these proposals vary quite a bit and, as ever, the details are important. But all varieties of the concept share some factors in common. Unlike regular immigrants, guest workers are only allowed into their host country…

It’s hard to know how seriously to take all the claims in this Seymour Hersh article on the Bush administration’s approach to Iran given all the unnamed sources. But the suggestion that the use of tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites is even being considered is scary. P.S. This Slate article attempts to…