We gave our readers a one-word writing prompt: “wilderness.”
community
For the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, we asked writers to choose one formative book and tell us about it.
What soldiers come home to
Can Christians display a life together that’s as compelling as war?
Immanuel is the agenda
What humankind needs is a love that sticks around, a love that stays put, a love that hangs on. That’s what the cross is.
I support my church's requirement that retired clergy stay away. But nobody warned me how much I would miss all this—or if they did, I wasn't listening.
For my money, John’s is the only Gospel in which Jesus seems really lonely.
Ordinarily I don't like to write about Fred Phelps and his family. When a group's main goal is to say hateful things and draw attention to itself, I don't want to help out with that project in any small way. But Megan Phelps-Roper, Phelps's granddaughter, is another story.
When I saw the headline in the New York Times—“The Hidden Prosperity of the Poor”— I thought of something very different than what Tom Edsall’s commentary is actually about. Edsall highlights an insidious and specious argument about income inequality made on the right. In essence, the cost of basic human needs has gone down in relation to income, while consumer goods have become cheaper and cheaper.
Humans can't flourish without institutions, flawed as they are. Holding them accountable, and increasing their capacity, enhances human life.