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October 21, 2020

Volume 137, Issue #22

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Features

First Person

The surprising freedom of being a guest preacher

I might or might not be invited back. Either way, there’s no lasting harm.

by Barbara Brown Taylor

Reflection

When the wildfires came to my house, I remembered the garden of Eden

Here in Oregon, the consequences of our actions are burning all around us.

by Deborah Wilhelm

First Person

Ruth Bader Ginsburg saw the biblical Deborah as a role model

When I asked her why, she talked about another role model: Pauli Murray.

by Serene Jones

Books

Danusha Laméris’s new book is filled with small kindnesses

A luminous poetry collection marked by joy and sorrow, humor and truth.

by James Crews

Take & Read: Global Christianity

Five books that take readers beyond Anglophone perspectives

by Philip Jenkins

Eddie Glaude revisits James Baldwin’s America

Begin Again’s call to repentance is, like Baldwin’s own language, substantially Christian.

by Charles Scriven

Take & Read: New Testament

Has Paul been unfairly judged?

by Joshua Jipp

Yaa Gyasi’s beautiful novel embraces faith that changes and grows

Transcendent Kingdom explores an immigrant neuroscientist’s complicated relationship with evangelical Christianity.

by Lance Morgan

Books for pandemic reading

Nine writers tell us about a book they’ve read recently that’s helped them reframe what it means to be a person of faith and a reader right now.

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Take & Read: American religious history

Four new books that explore Black Americans’ religious witness

by Douglas H. Brown Clark

Lyz Lenz’s midrash on pregnancy and motherhood

Lenz blends storytelling and critique to explore the role of myths in defining women’s bodies.

by Kristel Clayville

Willie Jennings’s plea to create a new kind of theologian

After Whiteness is urgent reading for any institution that purports to care about God and race.

by Jason Byassee

Take & Read: Practical theology

Five books that introduce new voices to the conversation

by Mary Clark Moschella

Marilynne Robinson’s new Gilead novel makes Jack Boughton make sense

Everything in Jack is a marvel.

by Phil Christman

Douglas Ottati’s liberal piety

The theologian starts by recognizing that we know enough to live fully in response to God’s grace.

by Stephen Healey

N. T. Wright and Walter Brueggemann look to the Bible for wisdom during the pandemic

They both resist easy answers to the problem of suffering.

by Jason A. Mahn

Michael Cohen’s tell-all about Trump is mostly about himself

The moral lessons of his humiliation and imprisonment seem fairly limited.

by Elizabeth Palmer

Departments

Faith Matters

The struggle to live in unity when everything’s divided

We know how to wield a sword, but nobody taught us how to cultivate a field.

by Brian Bantum

Islamic loyalty is declining in Iran

What’s replacing it?

by Philip Jenkins

On Art

Stokely Carmichael and Michelle Obama, by Panhandle Slim

If you live in Savannah, Georgia, you know Panhandle Slim. His signature work appears on billboards and on schools, in homes, barbershops, and community centers....

art selection and comment by Lil Copan

From the Editors

Police shouldn’t be the first responders for mental health crises

When they are, the result can be deadly.

First Words

Loving your neighbor starts with the people on your block

My five-year-old parishioner spent the summer going door to door.

by Peter W. Marty

News

Mennonite Central Committee celebrates 100 years of service

Mennonite Central Committee’s centennial didn’t start the way anyone had planned....

by Linda Espenshade

People

Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at 87

A phrase from the book of Deuteronomy hangs framed on the wall of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court chamber: “Justice, justice you shall pursue.”...

by Yonat Shimron