Features
Trees communicate with one another. I’m trying to listen.
Sin and grace in public discourse
Books
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.
Departments
Hilma af Klint’s new ways of seeing
Untitled envelope art, by Mary Kane
True generosity comes from joy
The Orthodox in Ukraine and their rival churches
Migrants are suffering. Will increased funding help?
News
Muslims and Christians in northern Nigeria take steps toward reconciling
Conflict in northern Nigeria has often pitted the Muslim majority against the Christian minority. Some neighbors are working to change that.
California church sues over polling place dispute
A local voter complained about the church’s Black Lives Matter banners and the church was removed as a county polling place.
Elpidophoros Lambriniadis becomes head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
Succeeding Demetrios Trakatellis, he is the first new US Greek Orthodox leader in two decades.
Schubert Miles Ogden, Protestant theologian, dies at age 91
Ogden engaged “the credibility of the Christian witness,” he wrote in the Century’s How My Mind Has Changed series. “Christian faith itself claims to be credible in terms of common human experience.”
Hispanic evangelical group offers churches’ help in housing migrant children
The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference is launching a campaign to offer aid to immigrant children held in detention centers at the border.
Ancient Siloam Pool road excavation sparking latest political clash between Israel and Palestine
The road, which was at ground level 2,000 years ago, is now under the Arab neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem.
Covenant Church expels congregation and pastors over LGBTQ inclusion
The vote expelling the 145-year-old First Covenant Church Minneapolis was the first time the Evangelical Covenant members have removed a congregation from the denomination.
UCC endorses Green New Deal
The denomination helped launch the environmental justice movement in the 1980s and more recently was an early leader in divesting from fossil fuels.
Sanctuary churches say fines against immigrants meant to sow fear
People living in sanctuary to escape deportation have received fines of up to half a million dollars.