Theology
From shame to gift
Humans have a special talent for screwing things up. I think acknowledging this offers liberation.
Understanding polyamory
Alternatives to monogamous marriage are going mainstream. How will Christians respond?
A sacred migration to a changing future
Colonialism wants to keep Native America locked in the closet of the past. But we have something important to say about the present—and about what comes next.
What Gen Z knows about the church
It’s not that they know nothing; it’s just that we don’t like to talk about what they know.
A Jewish exploration of Christian theology
Alan Brill offers both scrutiny of our doctrines and a word of correction to his fellow Jews.
The philosophers vs. the mystics?
Jamie Smith’s talents are rare and his insights clear. But his rejection of either/or thinking is so stark that it creates a false binary of its own.
My dying best friend’s wedding
She collapsed on the sidewalk the night of my wedding. Eighteen months later, I stood by her hospital bed and offered to plan hers.
The future of dying?
Physician-assisted suicide is morally complex. For Christians, it requires wrestling theologically with concepts like suffering, autonomy, and dignity.
The social failure behind assisted suicide
Why are people in pain? Why are their illnesses incurable? Neither advocates nor opponents of PAS tend to ask these questions.
Afro-pessimism and Christian hope
Reading Saidiya Hartman alongside Vincent Lloyd has helped me get through the night.
Religious scripts for dying
Travis Pickell explores the moral burden placed on those who face end-of-life medical decisions but lack communal support.
Augustine gave me a language for staying alive
The Korean concept of hwa-yang-yeon-hwa has helped me embody the theologian’s idea of the beata vita.
At home with the Baptists
At my first gathering of Baptists in decades, I found something I didn’t know I was missing: testimony.
What if mercy matters more than empathy?
Christian compassion begins not with imagining another person’s pain but with recognizing our shared dependence on grace.
The scars of a flourishing human
Many people assume that disability is bad for a person’s well-being. But historically we haven’t been very good at determining what’s bad for someone.
Natural death and Christian love
The most religious people are also statistically the most likely to place their faith in artificial life support. Why?