Features
The lives of wild seeds
Mayan seed guardians and Mennonite farmers are working to recognize their interdependence—with each other and with the land.
Seeing with clarity
You can live a long time off a vision like the transfiguration. But there is much else in this world we must look at, from which we dare not avert our eyes.
Entertainment in an Easter Egg Economy
From Taylor Swift to Stranger Things, pop culture fandom now includes sleuthing—for better or worse.
Feeling our way through climate change
A yearlong conversation between scientists and clergy has helped me rethink the promise of MDiv education.
A heart that spoke and listened
Lerita Coleman Brown’s health journey drew her to the contemplative path. She taught me to listen with my whole self.
What we could not see as beautiful
When I told my reading group we’d be looking at one of Brian Staveley’s dark fantasy novels alongside Hans Urs von Balthasar’s theology, they balked.
Luther Seminary’s death mask
The school’s replica mold of Martin Luther’s face reminds me that I’m readying the plaster for the tradition that bears his name.
Learning in pieces
Theological education may be fracturing, but there’s wisdom and beauty in the fragments.
Portraits of silence
My week in a convent helped me see how our freedom is contaminated by noise. Silentium is a tribute to the nuns who welcomed me.
The making of Islamophobia
The West’s understanding of Islam has been shaped by centuries of superficial, deeply biased Christian teaching.
The bad king
Nimrod is the biblical archetype of the corrupt leader obsessed with his own power.
This political moment demands theology
As Christians, we need to protest authoritarianism and support the people it targets. We also need to underscore the deep foundations of this work.
Is fascism inherently Christian?
Antifascist writers of the last century grappled with the same bewilderment we do—and they made sense of their politics theologically.
Advent in all its terror
If we remove the difficult facts of history leading up to Jesus’ birth, the story loses its power.
The night the universe looked back at me
Sometimes we glimpse magnificence in common occurrences. Science stumbles into poetry. We get a taste of singularity.
Singing the Newsboys with Flamy Grant
The musician and drag queen is an exvangelical who came to see that holding on to a theology of self-loathing was just too dangerous.
A theology of impossible cheeseburger pie
A seminary cookbook from 1984 led me to revisit the potlucks—and the beliefs—of my midwestern childhood.
A tale of two Thanksgivings
Two adjacent items in a 1943 issue of The Saturday Evening Post highlight the conflict—and joy—inherent in our mythic meal.
Gifts you can read
What can we say? We love words.
Songs that call me home to Puerto Rico
Bad Bunny’s music and activism have reconnected me to roots I thought were severed beyond repair.