
Authors /
Lillian Daniel
Lillian Daniel is a preacher, teacher, and writer in Iowa, and the author of Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don’t Belong To (Hachette).
I want more for Deesha Philyaw’s church ladies
I want a sequel where they don’t have to hide their sexuality.
June 9, 2021
This novel about ridiculously rich people offers no simple lessons
Patrick deWitt is far too smart a writer to offer a sentimental narrative of redemption.
July 26, 2019
Which new books deserve a spot under the Christmas tree?
We asked our contributing editors to each pick two.
November 26, 2018
Colonial Americans suffered under a two-tiered justice system. Later they created one.
Since before the revolution, punishment has depended on who’s being punished.
July 26, 2017
Uniting the new working class
Today's laborers are more likely cleaning toilets than mining coal. But there's still a need to organize.
November 3, 2016
Flawed and fallen folk
"Fiction wasn't that big a leap for me," says Will Willimon. "We preachers are all 'artists' in the same sense that the gospel writers were."
October 6, 2013
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson, and Maine, by J. Courtney Sullivan
Both Helen Simonson and Courtney Sullivan write tales of generational misunderstanding in which the elder's voice has the last, not very pretty word.
September 10, 2013
Evangelical and gay
Justin Lee's book is more than charitable to his Southern Baptist origins. But his heart-wrenching stories speak for themselves.
March 5, 2013
Inconvenient solidarity: Religion professors support a hotel boycott
Scholars traveling to Chicago for the joint AAR–SBL meeting will have to make hard decisions—beginning with where to lay their heads.
November 1, 2012
Still, by Lauren F. Winner
Lauren Winner first drew widespread literary attention in 2004 with the spritely spiritual memoir Girl Meets God: A Memoir, which told the story of her conversion first to Orthodox Judaism...
April 22, 2012
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Inspired preachers
I knew my worst sermon was going to be terrible
before I preached it. I want to hold myself to a higher standard, and
James Howell's book offers the inspiration to get me there.
February 29, 2012
Little Boots
The blind kitten I adopted seemed to walk by faith instead of sight—the perfect companion to take to divinity school.
December 22, 2011
You can’t make this up: The limits of self-made religion
If we got all these spiritual-not-religious people together, they might find out that most of America agrees with them. But getting them together would be way too much like church.
September 1, 2011
Suburban search for meaning
Peter Lovenheim and Tom Montgomery Fate are both suburban dads on spiritual quests. In different ways, each of their books hits close to home.
July 26, 2011
Selling out?
MacDonald's biting critique is must reading. But missing from the book is the experience of hope that comes from the redemption of long-term service.
January 10, 2011