Let me begin with the story of two Rhodes Scholars. One is named William Jefferson Clinton. He went to Georgetown University on scholarship, Oxford on the Rhodes Scholarship, and Yale Law School. He served as the 40th and 42nd Governor of Arkansas and before that was Arkansas’ Attorney General.

Outside my office window there is a stunning tree. Burnt-red, tall and thick, deep blue sky behind it, and on either side trees still bright green.

Twenty-five-year-old noblewoman Anne Askew (1521–1546) was accused of heresy, arrested, interrogated at least twice, tortured on the rack, and burned alive at the stake.

I was raised in a church and family that encouraged women to be all that they were meant to be.

When my children were young, Valentine’s Day was hugely exciting. We made cookies with pink icing in heart shapes.

In my first year of graduate studies at Yale University, I was asked to be a teaching assistant in a course that allowed for “the yeah, yeah experience” to arise.

In my graduate studies, my professors had me read great books written by great men who had made a difference in the church and academy. They never talked about the great books that women had written and the great things that women had done. Women’s voices had long been silenced.

Can a woman preach? Can women lead worship? Does God ordain authority for women in the church? It is a question that matters to me, as a woman and a priest in the Anglican church, now for more than 25 years. Greek points us toward an answer!

I believe our alphabet reflects one of the most significant inventions of all time. Without it, it would take years for me to learn the hundreds of pictographic signs that would be necessary to write this blog and for you to be able to read it. 

Anne Hutchinson (ca. 1591-1643) was a courageous woman who fought for many of the freedoms we now take for granted.

Albert Mohler is blowing up the Internet.

I was first introduced to renowned abolitionist, women’s rights activist, and feminist biblical commentator Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) at a birthday party held in her honor at Yale Divinity School.

Where I grew up, in southern Pennsylvania, Groundhog Day was a big thing. For weeks before February 2, the papers, the broadcasters asked: would the groundhog—who had a name, Punxatawny Phil, from Punxatawny, Penn.—see his shadow?

Early African American women dared to preach and call for personal and societal change. These heroes of faith inspire us and need to be remembered. We stand on their shoulders as we continue to battle over questions of gender, race, and biblical interpretation.

As a scholar of ancient Hebrew, I have spent decades puzzling about how best to translate the first two verses of the Bible into English. Finally, I have settled on the following:

The biblical prophet Habakkuk lived during the troubled last decades of Israel’s southern kingdom. “The Chaldeans [also called Babylonians] that fierce and impetuous nation” threatened to destroy God’s people.

"What is the best Bible translation?"

As a biblical scholar, I am asked this question more than any other.

"What is the best Bible translation?"

As a biblical scholar, I am asked this question more than any other.

What can be said about Christian unity in a month that has seen yet another church propose to split?