Magazine /

March 2025

Volume 142, Issue #3

Features

America’s real sister act

“When we narrate the history of the church from the perspective of Black nuns,” says historian Shannen Dee Williams, “myths about the Catholic past fall quickly and they fall hard.”

interview by Amy Frykholm

How the West Bank settlements have changed Israel

The settler movement has spent decades pushing its views to the mainstream and building its political power.

by Arie Perliger

How shall we render?

Thankfully, the Christian tradition is filled with models of resistance to unjust leaders.

by Richard Lischer

Jimmy Carter, America’s best ex-president

After his 1980 defeat, Carter devoted himself to the causes of a progressive evangelicalism that has all but disappeared from public view.

by Randall Balmer

Voices

Stephanie Perdew

I still have a voice

After the election, I was worried about people being silenced. So I joined a choir.

Samuel Wells

Forerunners like John

Not everyone who makes a difference in the world gets the credit—or seeks it.

Books

The moral cost of rechargeable batteries

In the DRC’s cobalt mines, desperate workers earn a few dollars a day to help power our digital lives.

by John Rosenburg

Some good press for Paul

Biblical scholar Susan Grove Eastman brings the apostle into conversation with today’s world.

by Anthony B. Robinson

Simone Weil’s anti-fascist blueprint

Ros Schwartz’s translation of The Need for Roots makes Weil’s masterpiece feel as urgent today as it was in 1943.

by Mac Loftin

The role of judgment in Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s sophomore novel

Most reviews of Long Island Compromise blame the characters’ misery on their family’s wealth. But the reality of their predicament is far more serious.

by Caroline Langston