What book would you describe as beautiful?
10 writers respond.
The key of David and other Advent images
Each December we pray for the key of David to come. What does it lock and unlock?
What I found when I packed up my office
Some things are worth keeping precisely because they will soon turn to dust.
Blaise Pascal, blessed doubter
Pascal knew both the inconstancy of the human heart and the promise that we were made for glory.
Glorious things of thee are tweeted
I’ve never read Augustine’s City of God cover to cover. So I joined a Twitter experiment to help me get through it.
A toast to Ramanuja
Martin Luther isn’t the only theologian for whom we celebrate a major anniversary this year.
The Buddha and the Pantocrator
Buddhist statues and Orthodox icons aren't always symmetrical. Neither are we.
I and thou and ze?
Self-realization is possible only in relation to a reality beyond the self.
Mother Teresa at the spa
What's the difference between indulgence and respite? I'd like to ask St. Teresa.
Prophets of imagined futures
Since Charles William Eliot's future is our past, it's easy for us to see where his prophecy missed the mark. But could we do better?
Love in the time of evil
It's 2016 and the problem of evil is still unsolved. It's found a megaphone in Stephen Fry, who offers more rhetorical power than originality.
A likely story
Each year I ask my students to devise arguments for God. They respond less like well diggers than like beachcombers, gathering bits of evidence.
Doctor Johnson’s failures
Every New Year's, every Easter, every anniversary of his wife's death, Samuel Johnson took stock and prayed for the grace to try again.
Captured on canvas
In Fra Carnevale’s Annunciation, Mary’s face signals she is pondering the angel’s message in full consciousness of the joys and terrors it will bring.
The face of Everyhuman
As a child, I liked to survey strangers about what it means to be human. Brandon Stanton has created a fully realized version of what I was doing.