On the Shelf
Honoring the Christians persecuted under Bolshevik rule requires knowing their stories
How Rod Dreher gets Russian history—and the American present—wrong
Healing the wounds of racism
“We labor for a day that we may never see, and always in the face of opposition.”
Why I'm reading Deborah Lipstadt
I never thought that in 2019 a book on antisemitism in America would be vital reading.
Why I’m reading Nyasha Junior
If we want our biblical interpretation to align with the fullness of who Christ is, we need new lenses.
Getting started
“I don’t do goals,” I say when it’s my turn to introduce myself. A thin blanket beneath me, my legs folded, I am sitting in a circle of women at my local yoga studio. We are at a workshop “setting intentions for the New Year” with “a feminine approach to goal setting.” I am skeptical. I am more of a “let the destination find you” kind of person. I am better at beginnings.
Despair and resistance
Kyle Minor's second collection of short stories follows the success of his first, In the Devil's Territory, with acclaim. It is a beautiful work—and one that I believe promises more than it delivers.
What I am and am not reading this summer
Three things I am reading this summer, and three that I am not.
Book recommendations from Tanya Luhrmann
I recently interviewed cultural anthropologist and New York Times columnist Tanya Luhrmann about prayer and religious experience. After the interview, I asked her for some recommendations of books on prayer that are not "how-tos." What are some books that can help me understand prayer more conceptually and experientially?
The textures of a place
Reading Edwidge Danticat’s novel Claire of the Sea Light is like swimming through a gentle tide in a body of water known for riptides. The feeling that something invisible, fierce, and irreparable is just under the surface never quite leaves the corner of the reader’s mind.
The story traces relational ties in Ville Rose, a small coastal village town in Haiti.
Never again?
In 1920, not long after the Great War, a little-known agitator gave a speech in Munich on the topic, "Why Are We Anti-Semites?" The speaker concluded that it was important to prevent Germany “from suffering a death by crucifixion."
Of course this agitator became quite well known—it was Adolf Hitler—and we know what his antisemitism led to.
Everyday blessings
Novelist Kent Haruf has often drawn on his upbringing on the sparse eastern plains of Colorado. But in his latest novel, Benediction, Haruf inches closer to his roots than he ever has. One of his central characters is a minister in a small town church that’s much like the ones that Haruf grew up in as the son of a Methodist minister.