Features
Sweet harvest: Notes from the farm
As soon as frost threatens, my brother drops everything and calls all hands to come help dig the sweet potatoes.
A living question mark: Protestants and Jews after Nostra Aetate
It was the shortest Vatican II document but among the most influential. Whatever its limits, it was a watershed in Christian-Jewish relations.
Song: Essays by readers
In response to our request for essays on song, we received many compelling reflections. Here is a selection.
Naming the shadows: My visit to Lbeck
The Totentatz window was created soon after the Shoah but with no reference to the city's murdered Jews. Two of them were my grandparents.
Books
Strangers No More, by Richard Alba and Nancy Foner
The strangers of Richard Alba and Nancy Foner's title are mainly low-status immigrants and their children. The timeliness of their book is indisputable.
Working-class Christians
According to Heath Carter, working people have been some of Christianity's most important theological innovators.
Running to the Fire, by Tim Bascom
Tim Bascom experienced a revolution through a teenager's sensibility. But despite the great material this provides, his memoir has a plodding feel.
Do No Harm, by Henry Marsh
Reading about Henry Marsh’s vocation to neurosurgery, I thought about my own calling as a minister. I was startled by his depiction of detachment from patients.
Saved by Islam?
Submission is billed as a cautionary tale about Islam's threat to Europe. In fact it's more of an introspective tract on the West's ambivalence about survival.
Departments
The face of Everyhuman
As a child, I liked to survey strangers about what it means to be human. Brandon Stanton has created a fully realized version of what I was doing.
Reconcilers in Madagascar
Search online for Madagascar and you get mostly references to animated films about animals. Dig deeper and you'll find a still more amazing true story.
Drawing exercises by Nathan Riggs (top) and Leon Martinez (bottom)
Treacy Ziegler works with artists in prison like Nathan Riggs and Leon Martinez, sometimes presenting her curriculum to them by mail. “The act of drawing, even in prison, gives access to an experience of one’s world....
Reality rap
It's hard to watch Straight Outta Compton and not think of #BlackLivesMatter. But this is not explicitly a movie about politics or race.
A woman’s decision
My wife volunteered as an "accompanier" at Planned Parenthood. She found that each client came with a unique urgent set of circumstances.
Unmoved
The state killed Kelly Gissendaner despite the evidence of a changed life. This points to a desire for retribution rather than reformation.
News
Pope lays out political, ecclesial vision
The six days of Pope Francis’s first U.S. visit were packed with historic speeches and meetings, as well as various masses, parades, photo ops, and lectures—the latter mainly to his bishops....
Churches, indigenous groups protest canonization of missionary priest
On one coast, in Washington, D.C., Pope Francis celebrated the canonization mass of Junípero Serra, a Spanish priest who led evangelization efforts in colonial California....
Kelly Gissendaner, prison theology studies graduate, executed in Georgia
Despite pleas by Pope Francis, theologian Jürgen Moltmann, pastors, professors, and fellow inmates, Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 47, was executed by the state of Georgia on September 30....
Rare Egyptian mosaic goes on display in Israel
(The Christian Science Monitor) A multicolored mosaic showing an ancient Egyptian settlement went on display recently in an unlikely location: a parking lot in Israel....
J. R. Daniel Kirk to leave Fuller seminary amid conflict
This academic year will be the last year J. R....
Brazil, Peru churches end partnerships with PCUSA over same-sex marriage
Presbyterian churches in Brazil and Peru have broken ties with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as a result of the U.S. denomination’s decision in March to allow clergy to celebrate same-sex marriages....
Proposal to loosen ties in Anglican Communion draws mixed response
A proposal to loosen the ties of the 80-million-member Anglican Communion, currently the world’s third-largest Christian body, drew a variety of reactions....
Lectionary
Ordinary 32B (Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17)
I’m afraid for Ruth. Boaz’s words suggest either that Ruth has already been assaulted and humiliated, or that it would have been customary for a woman in her position to expect abuse.
November 1, All Saints Day: John 11:32-44
When I read John 11 and heard Jesus thundering, “Unbind him and let him go!" I realized I had not forgiven my father.