Features
Clarissa and her flowers
Reading The Hours in my husband’s hospital room, I was stunned by the novel’s incarnational imagery.
Against killing children
We have become a society of people who cannot prevent our own children from being killed in their classrooms—and who do not much mind the killing of other people’s children by weapons of war.
The most dangerous preacher in Hungary
Methodist leader Gábor Iványi is perhaps Viktor Orbán’s fiercest critic. He’s looking to Americans for solidarity.
Gods who make worlds
By definition, epic fantasy involves a world with a creator. Tad Williams’s Osten Ard is the best since Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
How can a congregation change its culture?
It helps to focus less on structure and instead envision the church as an organism.
Emily Dickinson, botanist
Before the beloved poet tended words, she tended the earth.
Djokovic against the gods
Humans crave stories that create order, whether they’re about the supreme being in the universe or the greatest tennis player in history.
Faith at the expense of freedom
Catholic integralism is not fascism. But the two have often made common cause.
The poetic space of the liturgy
What if we suspend our disbelief, collapse our ironic distance, and allow ourselves to go in?
Kamala Harris’s interfaith identity could help her win the election
Engaging openly with her Christian, Hindu, and Jewish traditions also models a healthy way to build coalitions for social justice.
The roots of Hebrew Roots
A small but growing movement of Christians believes fervently that Torah observance is for everyone.
The Christian lady preacher and the queer Jewish poet
If I could give every new pastor a gift in their first year of preaching, I’d give them a friend like Jessica Jacobs.
The all-knowing cloud and the cloud of unknowing
Clouds evoke the sublime. What about the cloud that stores our data and mediates its flow?
The wisdom of dreamwork
“I don’t interpret dreams,” says poet and spiritual director Rodger Kamenetz. “I bring them to life.”
The deluge and after
This spring, I was new to the Midwest—and the cataclysm of a biblical flood was not on my agenda.
Can we build our own future?
Elon Musk’s techno-optimism needs something to temper it. Maybe the dimmer outlook of a companion named Hobbes.
Jesus among the drag queens
Those who are offended by the Opening Ceremonies tableau should take another look at their New Testaments.
What is a church’s money for?
As a pastor, I am both grateful for our congregation’s healthy endowment and distressed by it. I don’t think I’m alone.
Did God intervene to save Trump’s life?
Underneath this question lies layer upon layer of ever more troubling theological questions.
My childhood congregation was a progressive Christian dream come true
So why don’t more of the people who grew up there practice Christianity as adults?