America’s real sister act
“When we narrate the history of the church from the perspective of Black nuns,” says historian Shannen Dee Williams, “myths about the Catholic past fall quickly and they fall hard.”
The magic of Amy Leach’s world
The essayist playfully contrasts the apocalyptic, fundamentalist worldviews of her childhood with the teeming abundance of life that she found later.
Reading into the gaps
“Because certain scribal puns appear only in Galatians,” says Candida Moss, “we have to consider that they come from the secretary rather than Paul.”
Can scientists make a universe from nothing?
“Empty space is never really, truly empty,” says science writer Zeeya Merali.
Cultivating literary Dallas
“It was not enough to publish books,” says Deep Vellum founder Will Evans. “We needed a place to invite people in, to put literature at the core of the cultural community.”
A novel about (not) writing an essay
Rosalind Brown’s debut novel could be understood as a midrash on Montaigne’s metaphor of the mind as runaway horse.
The wisdom of dreamwork
“I don’t interpret dreams,” says poet and spiritual director Rodger Kamenetz. “I bring them to life.”
Coffee justice in Mexico
Café Justo’s alternative to the fair trade model keeps the means of production—and most of the profit—in the local community.
A world with no boundaries
Russian writer Ludmila Ulitskaya’s stories of love and defiance escape the plane of realism.
A Refugee’s Feast: the story of Maria Skobtsova with Amy Frykholm (S3:E8)
“Love is a very dangerous thing.”
Love and desolation: The story of Matushka Olga Michael with Meagan Saliashvili (S3:E7)
“Blessed Olga said, ‘God can create great beauty out of complete desolation.’”
The story never meant to be told: The suppressed history of African American religious women with Shannen Dee Williams (S3:E6)
“When confronted with the silenced past, the greatest responsibility of the historian—and the most radical thing any person can do—is to tell the story that was never meant to be told.”
The slow work of dialogue
For 20 years, Mennonite scholars from North America and Shi’a scholars from Iran have met periodically to build bridges.
Who wrote the Bible?: Enslaved people and the New Testament with Candida Moss (S3:E5)
“Once we accept biblical collaboration as fact and recognize its participants as oppressed human beings who nevertheless had agency, we are forced to confront a truth that can be unsettling to some readers of scripture: that the meaning of the Bible is fluid.”
Intelligence moved by love: Thecla as philosopher with Dawn LaValle Norman (S3:E4)
“Thecla shows us how women could be important models, not only insofar as they overcame their femininity, but in their femininity, as models for men and women.”