Latest Articles
Trees communicate with one another. I’m trying to listen.
My favorite is a 100-year-old male cottonwood. I call him Grandfather.
After the personal salvation gospel
The world won't be saved by my prayers or virtuous desires.
Hilma af Klint’s new ways of seeing
Years before Kandinsky, a Swedish woman created magnificent abstract paintings.
Does God command genocide in the book of Joshua?
Daniel Hawk avoids easy responses to violence in the Bible—but then enters some troubling territory.
August 18, Ordinary 20C (Luke 12:49-56; Jeremiah 23:23-29)
We preach the gospel of peace and justice. Are there divides between our words and actions?
The Century invites reader submissions
The Century invites readers to submit first-person narratives on the topics feet and plate.
When Jane Tompkins couldn’t move, she read
Confined by illness, the feminist literary scholar dove into the complete works of V.S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux.
True generosity comes from joy
Bone-deep generosity has nothing to do with means and everything to do with desire.
Putting ourselves in Martha, Mary, and Jesus’ shoes (Luke 10:38-42)
This is a story some of us need to hear in a new way.
Time waits for no one
I went to see the Rolling Stones play again—and revisited an adolescent fantasy.
The Orthodox in Ukraine and their rival churches
The creation of a new body echoes old hostilities.
Toni Morrison writes about race, religion, and her own fiction
Our language isn’t neutral. It has history embedded within it.
August 11, Ordinary 19C (Luke 12:32-40)
Jesus is the thief, and the powers of this world own the house in which we’re waiting.
Sin and grace in public discourse
“We’ve lost the capacity to talk about the universality of brokenness—and belovedness.”