Features
Cecil Williams kept his ear to the ground
Bone chapels and their strange art
Bridging the ideological divide
Can we save democracy in the United States?
Wisdom from Augustine in an election year
What does solidarity mean at the border?
Voices
Yolanda Pierce
Lessons from the land of lake effect snow
Life can be as unpredictable as the weather in upstate New York. But God’s steadfast love endures forever.
Samuel Wells
Mourning prayer
The church’s old cork board reminded me that our heartbroken cries go directly to God.
Heidi Neumark
Conspiracies of goodness
When I fear a dystopian future, I hold on to stories of everyday resistance.
Melissa Florer-Bixler
The gift of interfaith difference
At the Muslim community center, I felt the tension of our divergence. But I also sensed gratitude.
Julian DeShazier
Why church marketing won’t work with Gen Z
Equity requires people with power giving some of it up. What if we applied this principle to young adult ministry?
Alejandra Oliva
Vegetables that are fearfully and wonderfully made
My friend left me his CSA share for two weeks. It changed the way I look at labor.
Books
Wreckage and euphoria
Barbara Crooker’s new poetry collection is a journey through loss that reveals the world’s beauty.
The Obama campaign, fictionalized
Vinson Cunningham’s debut novel focuses on a campaign staffer’s indeterminate views, using them to shed light on the rise of a political star.
True crime at the div school
In 1991, religion scholar Ioan Petru Culianu was murdered at the University of Chicago. Was this killing related to his controversial mentor, Mircea Eliade?
When the doctrine of discovery became law
Steven Schwartzberg shows how the 19th-century arguments for Native American expulsion went against the intentions of the framers of the Constitution—and how they remain with us today.
Healing from the ground up
In her memoir, Lore Ferguson Wilbert draws connections between her life and the forest‘s understory.
What happened to the American dream in the 20th century?
David Leonhardt tells the story in the language of economic analysis.
The unsettling surprise of God’s mercy
Father-son duo Richard and Christopher Hays set aside their old positions in favor of a more expansive view of biblically faithful queer inclusion.
A poet’s quarrel with herself
Danielle Chapman’s lustrous memoir is at its best when she holds her family’s Confederate history up to the light.
Departments
Voting is important. It isn’t sacred.
Playing to the crowds
