Books

When I read the book of Joshua, it is easy for me to miss God's call for genocide.

In poor communities like the one where I live and work, evictions are not the exception. They’re the norm.

I love Genesis for some of the same reasons the church fathers were wary of it.

Reading Exodus together with Isabel Wilkerson reminds me that the biblical story is not told from my point of view.

To meet others as God meets us—prickly and imprecise and difficult though we may sometimes be—is a kind of grace.

Balancing political realism with an openness to grace is not easy. But Arendt and Kiess propose just such a balance, so that “politics becomes the art of being born.” 

Human sexuality is fraught, particularly when mixed with the complexities of culture, religion, patriarchy, and adolescence.

From his youth Lax experienced a love of God that would not abate, calling him toward both solitude and engagement with others.

Nussbaum, a psychiatrist who labels himself a “bad Catholic,” delves with religious fervor into the mystery of his calling to serve people who suffer. Guided by mentors like Basil of Caesarea, Hilde­gard of Bingen, and Stanley Hauerwas, he envisions medical care as a precious craft honed by the development of virtue. 

Do we bring our preformed politics into church or does the church transform us into disciples who practice a Jesus kind of politics?

Peanut allergies are rare in Africa, where children are exposed early and often to a variety of microbes that we might regard as old friends.

Even if increased equity were to involve a slightly smaller pie, the resulting social order may be preferred. When poverty declines, the social costs of poverty fall, and despair is replaced by hope.

Dennis Covington is famous for seeking faith in extreme places. Twenty years ago it was the snake-handling, poison-drinking Christians of southern Appa­lachia.

Theosis is mission’s starting point. Believers are called to “become” the gospel through participation in the divine life.

The Dones aren’t leaving church because they’re burned out. They’ve hit so much bureaucracy that they seek more efficient venues.

History of religion meets ethnography in this complex, intriguing account of Catholic devotional practices. Orsi, who teaches at Northwestern University, operates on several levels at once.

Honestly facing the conflict of self with self—and choosing words that reveal its particular manifestations in one life—is hard, hard work.

Katharine Bushnell was a reforming whirlwind who left the mission field to campaign for temperance and against the sex trade.

Surprisingly, evidence showed that the environmental movement’s most significant moments were overwhelmingly led by lapsed Presbyterians.

Journalist Chris Herlinger teams up with Paul Jeffrey, a United Methodist pastor and photojournalist, to tell stories of people who suffer from hunger and who work to combat it. The causes of hunger across the world—war, climate change, sexism, colonialism, political wrangling, unemployment—are woven into individual stories of those who are poor and hungry.