Voices
Brian Bantum
What’s special about a church building?
How many buildings do we pass by in our daily lives where we could simply walk in, sit down, and participate?
Melissa Florer-Bixler
A pulpit without a context
I asked ChatGPT for a sermon. What it wrote seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
Debie Thomas
Too much mystery?
Leaving evangelicalism allowed me to embrace the mystery of faith. I wonder if I’ve taken it too far.
Philip Jenkins
How empires spread religion
A global map of Christianity is stalked by imperial ghosts.
Heidi Neumark
The wilderness of a rural ministry circuit
I’m now a half-time “missional coach” to a six-church parish. I have many questions.
Isaac S. Villegas
Tear gas over the soccer field
“You’re welcome to take it back home with you,” my Palestinian friend said as I looked at the US-made canister in my hand. “Actually, take all of them.”
Isaac S. Villegas
Speaking in two tongues
Growing up bilingual primed me to see the gifts offered at Babel and Pentecost.
Julian DeShazier
Religiously fluid
Like a lot of Christian millennials, I don’t need Christianity to be everything for me.
Melissa Florer-Bixler
My son the PK said no to baptism
For now, anyway. After our discernment together, I consider this a success.
Jonathan Tran
One person’s self-made hell
Recently I attended the trial of a woman accused of killing a college student in a hit and run.
Alejandra Oliva
Movement of the soul
Justin Peck’s choreography takes the language of ballet and turns it into something more.
Samuel Wells
How might God bless a divided America?
On a recent trip to the US, I went to church—and found myself pondering three liturgical moments.
Debie Thomas
A deeper legacy than hard work
The psalms of ascent press hard against the norms of our bootstrap culture.
Julian DeShazier
Why I came back to the lectionary
My job as a preacher isn’t to change the game. It’s to run the plays well.
Heidi Neumark
Bearing the scars
Years ago, at a barbecue in Argentina, I realized I was the only person present who wasn’t a survivor of torture.
Brian Bantum
Can inclusive churches grow and thrive?
When my spouse’s church became more affirming, the major givers left.
Philip Jenkins
William Guthrie’s weird Christianity
The rector of St. Mark’s in-the-Bowery brought the church into relationship with the Greenwich Village avant-garde of the 1920s.
Alejandra Oliva
Annie Dillard in spring
Each March, I find my thoughts returning to Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
Jonathan Tran
Days of wanting
My family didn’t want to go to America at all; we left Vietnam on pain of death.