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Magazine /

June 2023

Volume 140, Issue #6
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Features

clockwise: French horn, canine illustration, truffle dog, hawk flying
Readers Write

Hunt: Essays by readers

We gave our readers a one-word writing prompt: “Hunt.”
person floating to the surface of a big body of water

God’s underwater language

As a marine biologist, I ask how—and dance at the edge of asking why.
by Emily Boring
rural church near a crossroad and hazy sky

Burnout and resilience in the wilderness

Many rural pastors like me are finding Jesus in the desert places.
by Brad Roth
Central Budapest along the Danube River

Hungary’s progressive Christian resistance

Viktor Orbán has tried to buy the loyalty of the churches, but not everyone is selling.
by Marc Roscoe Loustau
2 silhouettes exchanging paint colors between reds and blues

Deconstructed, reimagined faith

Five ways I see a new generation reorienting its Christianity
by Peter Choi

The duly elected Black men expelled from a state legislature—155 years ago

The expulsion of Justin Jones and Justin Pearson recalls the Original 33, expelled by Georgia’s anti-Reconstruction White majority in 1868.

by Dorothy Sanders Wells

Amy-Jill Levine
Interviews

What should churches do about the treatment of “the Jews” in John?

“Each of the typical approaches has problems. The best solution would be to change the lectionary.”

Steve Thorngate interviews Amy-Jill Levine

The problem with artificial intelligence is us

As long as AI is trained on human behavior, it will tend to replicate our worst flaws.

by Jessica Mesman

Voices

Brian Bantum illustration

Brian Bantum

Transformed by the dog I never wanted

She’s helping me answer the question, “Why this life instead of another?”

Illustration of columnist Rachel Mann

Rachel Mann

Falling into metaphor

I heard a variation on the Eden story that offers a new look at Eve.

Illustration of columnist Isaac S. Villegas

Isaac S. Villegas

The altar in my attic

My boxes of old sermons are a monument to my church’s ongoing conversation with God.

Illustration of columnist Debie Thomas

Debie Thomas

Why and how I believe in miracles

I don’t struggle with their plausibility. I do struggle with their consequences.

Illustration of columnist Philip Jenkins

Philip Jenkins

Paul’s lost letters

We’ll never know what he wrote to the churches at Jerusalem or Caesarea Maritima.

Illustration of columnist Heidi Neumark

Heidi Neumark

The strangers who saved my life

When you receive an emergency transfusion, you don’t get to choose who the blood comes from.

Books

Field and hills with trees and leaves turning to fall with retro filter

Reading scripture through the lens of nature

Daniel Cooperrider understands the Bible as an outdoor book, open to the sky.

by Curtis Ramsey-Lucas
Bullseye in teal, yellow, red, and black with missed arrows

Down to earth

For philosopher Costica Bradatan, failure delivers self-knowledge in a way that success cannot.

by Gordon D. Marino

The sin of ableism

Erin Raffety’s ethnographic study calls churches to repentance.

by Susan Willhauck
Four women

The women of midcentury moral philosophy

Two new books explore the intertwined scholarship and friendship of Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, and Mary Midgley.

by Amy Frykholm
On button with two hands almost touching

A tech-savvy Christian sexual ethic

Kate Ott challenges us to practice erotically attuned love everywhere, even online.

by Virginia White
Black and white image of Jim Thorpe with red text overlay

The myth and reality of Jim Thorpe

David Maraniss’s biography of the legendary athlete highlights the contradiction in White America’s attitude toward Native people.

by Jeffrey Johnson
Scorched buildings with red, foreboding sky and clouds

The rapture and beyond

Daniel Hummel shows how deeply dispensation­alism has shaped American religion.

by Keri Ladner
Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism

Is this how to be an anti-racist?

Jonathan Tran takes “identitarian anti-racism” to task.

by Jason Micheli

Departments

sculpture of impressions of plants from the tallgrass prairie
On Art

Delmar VanderZee’s Prairie Wisdom

Prairie Wisdom, by artist and biologist Delmar VanderZee, is a 15-tile sculpture of impressions of plants from the tallgrass prairie that used to range across the north-central United States....
by Lil Copan
umbrella held over a bag with a $ on it
First Words

Welfare for the wealthy

Half of all business meal expenses are tax deductible. This puts SNAP cuts in helpful perspective.
by Peter W. Marty
abstract of church steeple and family holding hands in blue
From the Editors

Secrets that must not be kept

Clergy-penitent privilege and mandatory reporting exist in complex tension. But child welfare has to come first.
Screen Time

Philomena Cunk’s 21st-century expertise

Like Drunk History and History of the World Part II, Cunk on Earth is very funny. But the larger joke is that fake news is winning.

by Kathryn Reklis

Lectionary

June 25, Ordinary 12A (Romans 6:1b–11)

False security is a lovely, loathsome thing.
by Kirk Byron Jones

June 18, Ordinary 11A (Genesis 18:1–15)

The prankster is God, through whom all things are possible.
by Kirk Byron Jones

June 11, Ordinary 10A (Matthew 9:9–13, 18–26)

Sitting and talking with a boy from Ethiopia, I received a radical dinner invitation.
by Ron Ruthruff

June 4, Trinity A (Genesis 1:1–2:4a; Psalm 8)

Trusting in God’s transcendence means acknowledging God’s otherness.
by Ron Ruthruff

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