From today’s Philadelphia Inquirer: ROME – The sudden recovery of a young French nun suffering from Parkinson’s disease is at the heart of the sainthood case for Pope John Paul II, the Polish priest who heads the inquiry said yesterday. The Vatican needs to confirm a miracle after John Paul’s death for the pontiff to…

Alan Bock reviews the case for nuclear proliferation. Not sure I’m convinced, but it’s worth a read.

During Lent our church has been hosting a series of guest preachers at our Wednesday night service. Last week it was a professor from the local seminary, and she offered what I thought was an interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying, rumination on the problem of evil (taking the appointed Psalm, number 77, as her text). Since…

God does not need or demand Jesus’ death so as to be able to “change his mind” about us, to be moved from wrath to mercy. That is the mistaken assumption of at least some vicarious satisfaction theories. Rather, God sends Jesus because of his immutable resolve to have mercy, concretely to do the mercy…

This article has a lot of good information on the Fair Trade coffee movement, its history, and some of the controversies involved.

This is exciting news: In July 1973, Johnny Cash spent several days in the studio at his House of Cash offices in Hendersonville, Tennessee, recording songs and telling tales with just an acoustic guitar and his virile craggy baritone. He sang Tin Pan Alley hits, traditional folk and gospel tunes, new originals and favorite covers…

Friend of this blog and Lutheran pastor Chip Frontz (pictured) has set up a blog to accompany a Lenten class he’s teaching on the Ten Commandments. He invites feedback, questions, and comments regarding both the content and format. It also has a very clever title: DECAbLOGUE. Check it out.

A couple of noteworthy items from Christianity Today‘s Books & Culture: Alan Jacobs has a fine essay on Christians as a “counterculture for good” (via Kim at Think Christian). Kenneth G. Elzinga reviews Benjamin Friedman’s The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth.

While the Oscars are still a relatively fresh topic, here’s a question: Why is it that for so many people Joe McCarthy remains the symbol of the suppression of civil liberties in America when there have been far worse offenders in U.S. history? I even heard one of the announcers during the Oscar pre-show refer…

A group of Vatican Radio employees gave Pope Benedict XVI a brand new iPod nano loaded with special Vatican Radio programming and classical music. To honor the pope’s first visit to the radio’s broadcasting headquarters, the radio’s technical staff decided the pencil-thin, state-of-the-art audio player would make the perfect gift. Now that Vatican Radio offers…