Books
Two-bit hustlers in the church and elsewhere
In Patrick Coleman’s novel, people hurt others with drugs, dollars, and/or Jesus.
In a politically divided church, what’s the preacher to do?
The answer, says Leah Schade, is about dialogue as much as any single sermon.
Can libraries save us?
What holds the world together, Eric Klinenberg believes, is social infrastructure.
In praise of Elie Wiesel
Two tributes that offer behind-the-scenes glimpses of the beloved teacher
Four people, one church
Cara Wall writes beautifully about something novelists rarely address: a mainline Protestant congregation.
Rowan Williams sees creation through the human, divine Christ
The incarnation doesn’t require a miracle; it reveals one that’s already there.
Philip Kolin’s poems for the holy, violent earth
Yearning for the impossible, glimpsing the unimaginable
Why I'm reading Deborah Lipstadt
I never thought that in 2019 a book on antisemitism in America would be vital reading.
A black pastor writes to the white church about its complicity in oppression
Lenny Duncan’s letter is full of hope and fury, love and lament—like Paul’s epistles.
Thinking musically about God
One note fills the whole space. Then we add another—and a third.
This novel about ridiculously rich people offers no simple lessons
Patrick deWitt is far too smart a writer to offer a sentimental narrative of redemption.
Does God command genocide in the book of Joshua?
Daniel Hawk avoids easy responses to violence in the Bible—but then enters some troubling territory.
When Jane Tompkins couldn’t move, she read
Confined by illness, the feminist literary scholar dove into the complete works of V.S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux.
Toni Morrison writes about race, religion, and her own fiction
Our language isn’t neutral. It has history embedded within it.
Steven Waldman has something new to say about religious freedom in the US
His narrative includes heroes and villains on both sides of the political divide.
Literary faith from Dostoevsky to Marilynne Robinson
Poetry and fiction grant us glimpses of God.
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s short stories reveal the insanity and violence of our society
Evoking the murders of unarmed black men, this collection is meant to appall us.
What greed looks like
The roots of our desire for money, pleasure, and power reach back to the Enlightenment.
Elaine Pagels’s lifelong search for the sacred
Pagels vividly recounts her spiritual experiences. But she won’t let herself be bound by any tradition.
Tracing the racist history of the death penalty in Georgia
R.J. Maratea argues that lynching declined when white people began to realize that the courtroom would work just as well.