Theology
“That girl from Andover”
Phyllis Trible gave me two gifts: her groundbreaking biblical scholarship and an unassuming friendship.
God’s relentless gaze
Like the surveillance state, the Christ Pantocrator icon asserts an omnipresent authority. But it also asserts divine mercy and love.
A musician meets Flannery O’Connor at the crossroads
“She made room for me to wrestle,” says North Carolina songwriter Colin Cutler, “room for doubt, for the idea that grace might move even when belief gets messy.”
Punk disciples
Theologian Robert Cady Saler considers Death to the World, an Eastern Orthodox movement that is both thoroughly Christian and thoroughly punk.
The parasocial power of AI
For some reason, it is sometimes easier for us to see personhood in a chatbot than in a fellow human.
The silent, suffering God
I’ve spent weeks in the hospital this year. I keep waiting for God to speak.
Freedom and the price of the ticket
James Baldwin reminds us that those who seek to police the freedom of others are, ironically, the least free.
When monsters preach
In the mythological universes created by horror films, Jesuit priest Ryan Duns finds insights about God.
Postliberalism and the romantic lie
I love René Girard. I don’t love that J. D. Vance loves him, too.
The apocalypse of dying
In a collection of short stories and theopoetic interludes, two pastors throw readers into the visceral body horror of end-of-life care.
Dark fantasy novels that scream theology
I didn’t expect so much sacramental imagination in Tamsyn Muir’s series about lesbian necromancers in space.
In prison, Satan is real
I’ve heard incarcerated women preach about a power that demands renunciation.
Confession: I don’t want Trump to go to heaven
Hearing him admit that he might not be first in line at the pearly gates was surreal.
My artificial chaplains
While recovering from a hiking accident, I posed the same theological question to multiple AI spiritual counselors.
The priesthood of all chatbots?
I’m sure there are good uses for AI in our churches. Prayer and preaching aren’t among them.
How I became religiously multiple
I’m on a personal journey into Buddhist–Christian belonging.
Why make things?
I couldn’t afford a nice bookshelf, and I couldn’t bring myself to buy a cheap one. So I headed to the hardware store.
Christology without supersessionism
Chris Green invites Christians to a humbler reading of scripture—one that listens, learns, and refuses to displace Israel’s voice.
Science is finally catching up with Teilhard de Chardin
Frank and Mary Frost, the filmmakers behind a recent PBS documentary about the Jesuit paleontologist, have long seen him as a true visionary.