Martin Elfert

“Being Buddha at Work” is a promising book, but it loses its balance early and never recovers. That’s a shame because the question which it authors, Franz Metcalf and B.J. Gallagher, set out to answer is an important one: what does it look like when our deepest values are thoroughly integrated into our work?

Shortly after this summer’s murders at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin, Sociology Professor Mark Juergensmeyer wrote a short article in which he reflected on the motivations of the perpetrator, Wade Michael Page. In his article, Juergensmeyer identified Page as a “Christian terrorist.”

Spokane has joined in the billboard wars. As Thomas J. Brown reported a few weeks back on SpokaneFAVS, our city is the latest in which an atheist group has purchased advertising to argue, among other things, that "Truth is real; God is imaginary."

The Christian blogosphere has been busy these last few days, as one of us after another has weighed in on Ross Douthat’s New York Times Article, “Can Liberal Christianity be Saved?” Some of the reflections have been insightful — see, in particular, Diana Butler Bass’ argument that Douthat has misread the data and, thereby, incorrectly confined a broad decline in American Christianity to certain denominations.

I read a lot of children’s books these days. It’s one of the many benefits of parenthood. Some of the books I know from my own childhood, such as Richard Scarry’s, "Busy Busy Town," with its excitable, anthropomorphic citizens.

Earlier this year I decided I was going to make good on a long-time plan and buy a road bike. I mostly ride on pavement these days; a few years back, I more or less permanently swapped out the knobbies on my mountain bike for slick tires.

Prior to going to seminary, I worked in the performing arts as a stage manager. I have a lot of colorful friends from those days.