Voices
Rachel Mann
Holy attachments
During the pandemic, I went six months without touching another human being. I felt starved.
Heidi Neumark
The bones in God’s garden
Will my daffodil bulbs overcome their trauma and rise up despite the odds? Will we?
Debie Thomas
Metaphors for the spiritual life
I have been an onion peeler and an excavator. I hope God will form me into a bridge.
Philip Jenkins
A landscape of lost denominations
In the US, church foundation stones tell a mostly forgotten story of religious and ethnic history.
Brian Bantum
The patron saint of in-between things
Having grown up as a Black-mixed kid, I can relate to Moses’ upbringing as not quite Hebrew and not quite Egyptian.
Melissa Florer-Bixler
Sharing the burden of language disorientation
At my church, some of us are learning Spanish. Others are learning English.
Alejandra Oliva
Caught up in the sweep of history
When I am troubled by the times in which we live, I turn to Óscar Romero.
Melissa Florer-Bixler
Nature is not an escape
To understand this, I had to stop reading John Muir and turn to the nature writing of the Harlem Renaissance.
Isaac S. Villegas
Harmful people with helpful ideas
I still read Luther, Calvin, and de Beauvoir. But John Howard Yoder’s sexual abuse has made me rethink my mindset.
Julian DeShazier
The 80/20 rule is a problem for churches
So why do so many of them embrace it as a solution?
Philip Jenkins
Were the lost gospels really lost?
The myth that alternative gospels were suppressed by empire and only recently rediscovered is too good to be true.
Yolanda Pierce
The grace of deep-bellied laughter
Does our theology have space for a Jesus who not only weeps but also laughs?
Isaac S. Villegas
Joyful life in Bethlehem
At a L’Arche community, I learned something about working and dreaming for peace.
Brian Bantum
No longer Black or White?
Perhaps the neither/nor of Galatians 3 isn’t really about moving beyond specific identities.
Rachel Mann
My struggle with Mary
Can Jesus’ mother be redeemed from the church’s tendency to parcel her up into a patriarchal box and then label it “glory”?
Yolanda Pierce
Settling into the joy of vocation
My life must be lived as a response to something beyond myself and my material needs.
Debie Thomas
Between the Bible and me
The version of Christian history I grew up with hit fast-forward after John’s Revelation and held it until the late 20th century.
Samuel Wells
The emotion standing in the way of peace
Anger can be both healthy and helpful. Rage offers only destruction.
Philip Jenkins
The literal drama of church history
Life in the Roman and Byzantine empires was utterly theatrical.