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History of religion meets ethnography in this complex, intriguing account of Catholic devotional practices. Orsi, who teaches at Northwestern University, operates on several levels at once.

Honestly facing the conflict of self with self—and choosing words that reveal its particular manifestations in one life—is hard, hard work.

Katharine Bushnell was a reforming whirlwind who left the mission field to campaign for temperance and against the sex trade.

Surprisingly, evidence showed that the environmental movement’s most significant moments were overwhelmingly led by lapsed Presbyterians.

Journalist Chris Herlinger teams up with Paul Jeffrey, a United Methodist pastor and photojournalist, to tell stories of people who suffer from hunger and who work to combat it. The causes of hunger across the world—war, climate change, sexism, colonialism, political wrangling, unemployment—are woven into individual stories of those who are poor and hungry.

Together, the three volumes are five inches tall and weigh more than my children did when they emerged from the sea of their mother.

We all belong to a collective, evolutionary process in which we, like the ants, work together to build our community and preserve the species.

McMinn, a sociologist and co-owner of a small farm, presumes a certain level of privilege among her readers: choose heirloom seeds; eat only fair trade chocolate; avoid plastic food containers; and buy eggs “from a local source, if possible, and/or from chickens raised outside eating grass and bugs.” Still, this book is an enticing reflection on the sacramental nature of preparing and eating meals.

The Enlightenment view of autonomous human subjects is built into the law, so the criminal justice system floats on myths and superstitions.

The history of Palestinian Christian interpretation of the Old Testament reminds us of the nuanced, fragile nature of life in that region.