Don't miss the final installment of Peter Steinfels's New York Times column on religion, which wraps up twenty years of "Beliefs."At his "Spiritual Politics" blog, Mark Silk offers a tribute and a farewell -- "As an arbiter of the passing religious scene, 'Beliefs' was without peer. I'll miss it." But Peter's column suggests there will be much to look forward to:

Assuring that well-founded traditional stances obtained a public hearing free of stereotypes and snap judgments was certainly a satisfying role, but also an uncomfortable one. Because I sometimes agreed with those stances and sometimes did not, I often longed to be more direct....It is partly to regain such freedom that, having left the regular staff of the paper in 1997, I have decided to bring Beliefs to a close. I look forward to being less limited to 900-word thoughts and to being more personal, more direct and, when needs be, more political.

A happy prospect for 2010!