Features
Shocked by grace: A visit to death row
Notes on loving your neighbor
Dislocated: A household move unleashes demons
Mentors: Essays by readers
Premarital wisdom: How pastors are counseling same-sex couples
Voices
Stephanie Paulsell
As if
Literary belief is always metaphorical, not actual. What about religious belief?
Philip Jenkins
An Irish peacemaker
Alec Reid’s heroic story sounds as if it comes from a Catholic suspense novel. But it really did happen—in Belfast in 1988.
Books
Theology for Liberal Protestants, by Douglas F. Ottati
The genius of Doug Ottati’s work is that he illuminates ways that theology is a source for rather than an obstacle to piety and practical living.
Holding on and letting go
The aging-parent memoir is a crowded genre. Still, I was eager to read Jeanne Murray Walker’s account of her mother’s last years. I wasn’t disappointed.
At-Risk, by Amina Gautier
The power of Amina Gautier’s stories is in the way they portray the undertow of danger that pulls at African American youth in a Brooklyn housing project.