Features
Flannery O’Connor’s challenge to the Lost Cause myths of the Confederacy
A white, southern pastor takes a hard look at the sin of racism
Books
The emergence of belief—and unbelief
Ethan Shagan chronicles the expansion of these concepts since the Middle Ages.
Unrigging the human game
We need to stop playing to win, says Bill McKibben, and start playing to keep the game going.
Catherine Keller’s political theology for the end of the world
Our era’s poet theologian begins by retranslating Paul: “the remaining time is contracted” (1 Cor. 7:29).
A novel about the chasms between people
Can we cross them? Is it worth it?
Sacred impulse, poetic form
For Sofia Starnes, poetry is the language of faith.
The anguish and ecstasy of the ark’s matriarch
Sarah Blake’s surrealist novel about Naamah—Noah’s wife—is mesmerizing.
Jesus’ earliest followers were Jewish, too
Paula Fredriksen challenges popular assumptions about the first generation of Christians.
What book gives you a powerful glimpse of the Christian life?
10 writers respond.
A prodigal son story on the island of Trinidad
Claire Adam’s debut novel is animated by a complicated landscape of family.
Serene Jones’s memoir poses as many theological questions as answers
Theology is story, and Jones is a rousing storyteller.
Tressie McMillan Cottom asks who black women’s voices are for
Cottom interrogates her own story loudly enough for others to hear themselves in it.
Take & read: New books in theology
To speak words of grace, we must first name the powers and principalities that hold us captive.
Put Ijeoma Oluo and Crystal Fleming on your antiracism reading list
Two new books offer an education—with grace and humor.
A radically new vision of mainline church leadership
Helping people think differently in changing times
Take & read: New books in Old Testament
Climate catastrophe, economic inequality, and the way we treat our dead
A chaplain, his cerebral palsy, and the philosophy that guides him
Stephen Faller’s series of wise reflections on being alive
Take & read: New books in ethics
In the Anthropocene era, do ethics matter?
The miracles of Julie Yip-Williams’s life and death
A cancer memoir about a life sustained by improbable events
Departments
Pentecost, by Giorgio Vasari
A parishioner with Alzheimer’s speaks for herself
Telling the truth about racism
The point of talking about reparations is to reckon with generations of racial injustice
The Best of Enemies is a movie centered on one white man’s conversion
News
Billy Graham archives moving in June from Wheaton College to library in North Carolina
His son Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said moving the materials “is part of our continuing consolidation in Billy Graham’s hometown.”
In northeast Syria, a Christian community struggles to survive
Before the start of Syria’s crisis in 2011, Christians made up 10–12 percent of the country’s 18 million people.
Christian educator James Tebbe receives high-level civilian honor in Pakistan
Analogous to the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the award honors Tebbe’s leadership at Forman Christian College in Lahore.
American involvement in organized religion continues to wane
The data on the decline in church membership shares “almost exactly the same pattern of ups and downs” as engagement in secular civil society, said political scientist Robert Putnam.
J. Peter Sartain to retire as archbishop of Seattle and Paul Etienne to step into role
Sartain, who is in poor health, had requested a coadjutor archbishop serving alongside him in a transition period. Pope Francis chose Etienne.
UMC court ruling upholds restrictions on LGBTQ clergy and couples
In a separate ruling, the Judicial Council upheld an exit plan that allows churches to leave the denomination with their property.
Sudanese Christians join popular protests, call for religious freedom
Members of Sudan’s Christian minority have taken a prominent role in the demonstrations that began in December.
Response to mass shooting at California synagogue emphasizes shared humanity
“We are all created equal,” said the pastor of the Presbyterian church where the 19-year-old shooter is a member.
Religious services canceled after Sri Lanka church bombings
“What was attacked was Sri Lanka’s strained but still living tradition of inter-religious and inter-ethnic cooperation and friendship,” wrote one NGO leader.