Features
American hell
In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr.’s confidence in the politics of progressivism dimmed. Judgment became his refrain.
Ten Commandments, zero context
Many lawmakers want to see the commandments displayed in public schools. Are they also interested in the Hebrew Bible’s ethical demands?
Consent, outrage, and the abduction of Rumeysa Ozturk
The philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Fred Rogers are helping me make sense of the shameful footage.
The mysticism of Thea Bowman
As I studied Christian mystics, I kept wondering where the Black women were. Then I discovered Sister Thea.
Remembering a road trip to Selma 60 years ago
My classmates and I were eager to join the voting rights march to Montgomery. But how would we get to Alabama?
False gods of war
In Trump’s Situation Room, as on the fields of Ilium, those who wage war seem unable to experience the violence they inflict as real violence.
The certainty summit
In 1978, a who’s who of conservative evangelical leaders met in Chicago to draft a statement on biblical inerrancy. It would change the course of church and state.
Trump the savior-king
The president, just as the Christian Reconstructionists intended, sits at the top of a violent system as the mouthpiece of a silent, abusive God.
The imitation of the Spirit
Christians are taught to practice imitatio Christi, empowered by the Holy Spirit. What if we flipped this narrative?
God cares about people, not what you call the West Bank
A US House committee will now use the biblical names Judea and Samaria. The point is to frame a political conflict as a religious war.
In Martin Marty’s classroom
One evening, Marty had the whole class out to his house. There were shelves of books that he wrote or edited and even more books by his students. I thought, I do not belong here.
Criticize J. D. Vance’s ordo amoris comments all you want—but please, leave Jews out of it
Christian responses that appeal to the gospels have misrepresented both the biblical texts and Jewish ethnocentrism.
Gospel inefficiency in the age of DOGE
God doesn’t count the same things we do.
Martin Marty’s unfinished conversations
The historian’s energetic affirmation of the unfinished—whether books or lives—invariably made encounters with him memorable events.
Voltaire’s encounter with the crucified Christ
The Enlightenment thinker was fiercely critical of religion. But what did he mean by religion?
Mariann Budde stoked fires of mercy
It’s been said that a sermon should be judged by its impact beyond the moment when it’s preached. In the last month, the bishop’s sermon at the National Cathedral has been making a difference.