Calvin Miller

No Assembly Required Perhaps because it comes at the end of the year, Christmas is a time when I tend to put so much of life together. It's not just the things that go under the tree. At Christmas I am prone to repair old relationships and broken promises. I am more pensive about ill-fitting […]

I was in Calcutta during the funeral of Mother Teresa. The Church of St. Thomas, where she was lying in state, was the site of an endless procession of her admirers and devotees. Along with throngs of American reporters and visitors, I filed past the body of this wonderful and selfless woman. It was moving […]

It has been over a year since an unnamed three-year old fell into the pit of the great apes in Brookfield, Ill. I was so taken by the face of Binti Jua, the gorilla, as she tenderly lifted the little boy and carried him through the dark forms that surrounded her in the pit and […]

Mormon temple number fifteen is opening in St. Louis, and before its consecration, Gentiles (Baptists, Catholics, etc.) can walk through and see such things as the marriage sealing rooms and baptistries where surrogate Mormons are baptized for the dead. USA TODAY in May gave a whole, free page to the temple (I can't remember the […]

Seventy-four million viewers elect Ellen Morgan as lesbian of the year, so here's to Ellen, who is basking in the notability of her celebrated role. But I can't help but wonder if she has ever read any of the writings of Oscar Wilde. He was the sodomite (that was the old word for gay) of […]

McDonalds now has more than a score of its restaurants in Israel. But they are getting mixed reviews. It all has to do with whether or not cheeseburgers are permissible for Jews to eat. The more orthodox Israelis, against seething a kid in its own milk (Deut. 14:21), hold strong taboos against eating cheese and […]

I can't remember the exact year that Americans outgrew the idea of sin. I know it all happened in the wake of the three Karls: Karl Marx, Carl Jung, and Carl Sagan. They may not have impacted many Christians, but there is little doubt about the sway these three Karls hold on Western thought. Karl […]

Hooray for the "V-Chip!" It could be the yellow brick road back to Gilligan's Island. Remember back when you could turn on your television without a remote control? Ricky Ricardo would be saying, "Lucy you can no sing wid my Ban …" or the Skipper on Gilligan's Island would be saying, "Hey little buddy, what's […]

Here we are at another year, getting ever closer to another millennium. How is the history of humanity told, as centuries roll over each other? Well, oddly, children's rhymes are one way that it is done. For instance, we remember the sixteenth century and the persecution of Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer in the nursery rhyme, […]

Okay, Okay! It's not that I don't believe in Santa. I can overlook my previous biases against a guy who can get into apartment complexes and house trailers (sans) chimneys. I can accept that he really should work on his abs a bit more. I don't even mind admitting he has elves; everybody needs a […]