A memoir becomes explicitly Christian when it derives its literary power from the power of the gospel. It doesn't preach, it shows.
Something about being close to the ocean is conducive to reading.
In a forceful speech, President Obama laid out in a few words the best argument for the deal with Iran: there is "no plausible alternative."
Critics view genealogy as a kind of ersatz historiography, an individualistic reconstruction of the past. But there is more to family tree building.
Over the last generation, the institution of pilgrimage has experienced a startling revival across what we often dismiss as secular Europe.
Do Trainwreck and Catastrophe herald a resurrection of the rom-com genre? Or merely a grotesque reanimation?
James reminds us of the duplicity of language, like a matchstick dropped by singed fingers that leaves behind charred acres. The deception of language is that we believe it is innocent.
I have spent most of my Christian life in deep discomfort with Mark 7. I now read it as an early example of the priesthood of all believers.
Post-traumatic texts
David Carr rereads the familiar materials of the Bible in conversation with trauma theory. This opens the way for a fresh and suggestive interpretation.
Inklings of good news
The proliferation of Inklings books is often prompted by Christian triumphalism. Carol and Philip Zaleski have something more interesting to say.
An Anxious Age, by Joseph Bottum
Joseph Bottum contends that the decline of mainline churches has created a moral vacuum that conservative Catholics and evangelicals have been unable to fill.