Posts By This Author

Unorthodox Orthodoxy

by Steve Thorngate 08-01-2008
Book review: From Stone to Living Word: Letting the Bible Live Again, by Debbie Blue.

A Reverence for Song

by Steve Thorngate 01-01-2008
The Trumpet Child, by Over the Rhine.

The "E" Word

by Steve Thorngate 04-01-2007

There are few words thornier than "evangelical." It's a broad category that includes fundamentalists; it's also a reaction against fundamentalism.

'Woman in the Room'

by Steve Thorngate 01-01-2007

I don’t usually expect too much from blues-rock music.

False Stewardship

by Steve Thorngate 08-01-2006
Dobson's is a fringe position gussied up in mainstream garb.

Songs of Quiet Hope

by Steve Thorngate 08-01-2006

This day is filling up my room,
Is coming through my door.
Oh, I have not seen this day before.

A God of Words?

by Steve Thorngate 07-01-2006

I was visiting a church at which pentecostal practices were gaining traction, bringing no small controversy with them.

Milk, With A Twist

by Steve Thorngate 06-01-2006

Hagar Soya, a soy milk company in Cambodia run by Christian development agency Hagar, recently started offering two fortified soya milk drinks for retail purchase.

Food for Thought

by Steve Thorngate 05-01-2006
At St. Olaf, students learn to reap what they sow.

Day Burtness and Dan Borek hoped to start an organic farm and community-supported agriculture program at St. Olaf College. But Northfield, Minnesota—a small, two-college town 35 miles south of Minneapolis-St. Paul—was already served by multiple CSAs and a food co-op. School officials were supportive but skeptical that a student-run farm would find any real market, even if the two students could come up with the necessary land and capital.

But Burtness and Borek obtained the use of a small piece of campus land and later received funding from the student government association. They also met with Hays Atkins, who runs St. Olaf’s food service for the Bon Appétit company, to discuss the possibility of a student farm that would function as a wholesaler instead of a CSA. In a move that would ensure both the college’s green light and, ultimately, the farm’s success, Atkins promised to purchase every piece of produce the farm could grow.

While Atkins’ commitment to a student-initiated project is surprising and impressive, it fits squarely with the considerable energy St. Olaf, a college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has for several years invested in ecological sustainability. The school’s current strategic plan names sustainability as a goal, and a task force—comprised of students, faculty, and staff—supports several projects aimed at both reducing the college’s collective ecological footprint and facilitating education and conversation on the subject. As anyone who has scrutinized environmental impact knows, a primary concern is food—its production, use, and waste disposal.

A 'Relevant' Conspiracy

by Steve Thorngate 04-01-2006

A few years ago, the “postmodern memoir” or “autobiographic novel” was all the rage among critics anxious to define new literary genres.

Nun's Killers Convicted

by Steve Thorngate 03-01-2006

A Brazilian court found Rayfran das Neves Sales and Clodoaldo Carlos Batista guilty of the 2005 murder of 73-year-old Catholic sister Dorothy Stang, SND. The men received 27- and 17-year prison sentences, respectively. The ranchers accused of ordering the murder are expected to stand trial this spring. Stang, an Ohio native, had lived since the early 1970s in the Anapu region of Para, Brazil, where she fought large-scale ranching and logging interests to protect poor farmers and the rainforest.

Bridging the Church Music Gap

by Steve Thorngate 03-01-2006
There's a rich middle ground between organ lofts and praise bands.

Faith: Not a Private Practice

by Steve Thorngate 12-01-2005

New Community Covenant Church, Chicago.