community

Helping people feel connected to one another is the holy work of any community, including congregations.

James and Deborah Fallows traveled around the U.S. to find out.

To resist the kind of society we don't want, we have to cultivate the kind we do.

He came to our community meal for years before I realized that I was asking something of him, too.

Peer-led discussions among young Muslims, Christian experiments in communal living, and pop-up Shabbat meals embody common yearnings.

We gave our readers a one-word writing prompt: “wilderness.”

For the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, we asked writers to choose one formative book and tell us about it.

Can Christians display a life together that’s as compelling as war?

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.

Monastic vows sound familiar to anyone who's been to a wedding. In both marriage and celibacy, we promise to be faithful.

The church is not an ark floating on the top of the waters. It lives and breathes within the waters.

To build stronger communities, we need to get in the habit of recognizing what undergirds our relationships. We can't afford to take it for granted.

Every pastor needs to address the issue of freedom and accountability. It's part of the pastor's role in nurturing a church community: neither a laissez-faire atmosphere nor a judicial one helps people grow as disciples.