By WALTER ALBRITTON RELIGION — In the beginning my preaching was so poor that some people were going to sleep before I got halfway to the benediction. Lacking confidence, I was using a manuscript and reading my sermons. With characteristic candor, my dear wife finally...

By WALTER ALBRITTON RELIGION — I love discovering a captivating new idea, like the one I found in “Resilient,”  John Eldredge’s recent book — that salvation is a new attachment. Equally exciting was learning that one of my favorite authors considered this the most...

By WALTER ALBRITTON RELIGION — When I was young, I read Thor Heyerdal’s “Kon-Tiki,” a true adventure story of five men who survived a dangerous 101-day journey across the Pacific Ocean in a primitive balsa wood raft. Having modeled their craft like those used by...

RELIGION — Upon the death of his mother, the Dutch priest Henri Nouwen wrote a little book titled “In Memoriam.” It is an intimate account of the power of a mother to influence a son. “From her,” Nouwen said, “I had come to feel an unqualified acceptance which had...