Magazine /

February 26, 2020

Volume 137, Issue #5

Download issue PDF ›
All back issues ›

Features

Critical Essay

In the Qur’an, God is a great debater

The Qur’an is not a description of God. It’s a call to conversion.

by Gabriel Said Reynolds

Readers Write

Feet: Essays by readers

We gave our readers a one-word writing prompt: “Feet.”

Critical Essay

What Meghan and Harry can and can’t escape

At the heart of life is the mess of being stuck with other people.

by Martha Tatarnic

Books

What makes an American home?

A literary look at the walls that protect us—and keep us captive

by Amy Frykholm

Brian Doyle’s rivers of words

A new collection of Doyle’s nonfiction overflows with wonder.

by Tom Montgomery Fate

Learning to face the doctrine of discovery

I wish I’d had Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah’s book when I was in college.

by Lauren D. Sawyer

Pope Francis’s vision of a wounded church converted by mercy

How can the church become less of a citadel and more of a field hospital?

by Curtis W. Freeman

Departments

First Words

Why we need the grime of Ash Wednesday

Like the sludge on a car in the winter, most of our messes accumulate gradually.

by Peter W. Marty

On Art

The Last Supper, by Brian Whelan

How to depict the 12 disciples has long been a perplexing problem for illustrators of the Last Supper. Artistic convention established that Peter should be presented as a curly-haired senior....

art selection and comment by John Kohan

Faith Matters

The truth about testimonies

As a child, I testified every Sunday morning. I can’t do it anymore.

by Debie Thomas

Screen Time

Sorry for Your Loss’s quiet exploration of race

A white woman, her black husband, and the struggle to be known

by Kathryn Reklis

From the Editors

At the border, “law and order” looks a lot like chaos

Trump’s new policies are creating confusion and misery.

News

New Orleans Saints fight to shield emails tied to Catholic sex abuse crisis

The New Orleans Saints are going to court to keep the public from seeing hundreds of emails that allegedly show team executives doing public relations damage control for the area’s Roman Catholic archdiocese to help it contain the fallout from a b...

by Jim Mustian

People

Gwen Ifill honored at historic AME church

In the historic black church where she worshiped, the late journalist Gwen Ifill was remembered with a new Black Heritage stamp in a ceremony featuring dignitaries of the church, politics, and journalism....

by Adelle M. Banks