Features
Mercy Amba Oduyoye and her Circle
Julian the theologian
The woman behind tarot’s strange beauty
Getting organized to help migrants in Chicago
Voices
Yolanda Pierce
Reading again
Books don’t change, but we do.
Melissa Florer-Bixler
Science fiction writers imagine the way out
Jesus’ parables give us space to see that something else is possible. Writers of new worlds put flesh on these bones.
Julian DeShazier
The well-credentialed pastor
My friend doesn’t want a PhD. He’s getting one anyway.
Alejandra Oliva
The border is everywhere
For example, it runs right through a detention center in Mississippi.
Samuel Wells
The Word became relationship
Christianity is, finally, a story in which communication prevails over violence.
Jonathan Tran
Anti-racism’s mission drift
Privileged progressives have turned their attention from structures and systems to sentimentalism.
Books
Standing on holy ground
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell’s poems carry the vision that all land, all people, and all moments are sacred.
Ekow Eshun’s journey into Black artistic consciousness
The writer and curator expounds on his celebrated exhibition’s thesis: that reimagining Black space and time with the fantastical invites a new way of being in the world.
Take & Read: Old Testament
New books about the Old Testament
Is The Hero of this Book a novel or a memoir?
In either case, Elizabeth McCracken’s account of losing a mother is wrenching and tender.
Meet Gil, the protector
The protagonist of Lydia Millet’s new novel is like a mother hen, both to his neighbors and to the birds.
A queer boy in North Dakota
Taylor Brorby’s coming-of-age memoir is a work of defiance. But it is not a tragedy.
Take & Read: Theology
New books addressing theological challenges
How we care for dead bodies—or don’t
Cody Sanders and Mikeal Parsons yearn for a better theology around death, dying, and the body.
From a Western phenomenon to a truly global church
John McGreevy makes what could have become a dull textbook into a riveting narrative of Catholicism’s modern history.
Ruth Bell Graham’s adjustments
Anne Blue Wills highlights the complexity of a woman convinced by her Christian culture that she was created by God to support her husband.
Take & Read: Ethics
New books shaping conversations on ethics
Jedediah Purdy’s democratic vision
This formidable yet accessible book should be homework for every thoughtful American.
Jesus is traumatized
Minister and veteran David Peters invites us to consider our own post-traumatic identities in a new light.
No justice in New Haven
Journalist Nicholas Dawidoff tells the tragic story of Bobby Johnson and his neighborhood on the poor, Black side of town.
Prayer as mourning, mourning as prayer
In Jon Fosse’s Septology, a tragic vision of faith shines with a luminous darkness.
Can the heat of a world on fire ignite seeds of joy?
Ross Gay’s new essay collection explores the revolutionary tactics of delight.
Priyanka Kumar considers the birds
Her elegant memoir is packed with information on the animals and landscapes she observes—and the threats to their future.
Kwame Bediako’s Christianity without domination
The Ghanaian theologian offered new methodological approaches in the wake of imperialism.
Departments
José Ignacio Fletes Cruz’s The Second Chance: The Ark of Noah
Our teens are not OK
