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June 15, 2022

Volume 139, Issue #12

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Features

This is my broken body

When illness took over my life, I developed a new understanding of the Eucharist.

by Kay Lynn Northcutt

Was my father right to embrace predestination?

If we take the doctrine seriously, then we dare not draw the circle of salvation along religious lines. Or any lines at all.

by Matthew Myer Boulton

Interviews

Thinking about God’s desire with the medieval mystics

“I have the sense that Mechthild of Magdeburg’s whole life was lived in pursuit of her divine beloved.”

Amy Frykholm interviews Wendy Farley

The bones of Jacques Marquette

The Jesuit explorer was a friend to Native Americans. At last, he’s going home.

by Jon Magnuson

Books

Joy Harjo gives words to the poet warriors who were her ancestors

The Indigenous writer’s new memoir understands memory as counsel and ritual as the potency of love.

by Jeffrey Johnson

The Bible’s imprints on US politics are noticeably masculine

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza wants us to reform our collective subconscious.

by Zen Hess

A White woman takes on the problem of nice White ladies

Sociologist Jessie Daniels reckons with the dangerous implications of the person she was raised to be.

by Whitney Wilkinson Arreche

Brian McLaren offers 10 solid reasons to abandon Christianity

And 10 reasons to stay.

by Martin Thielen

Departments

Faith Matters

On the holiness of casseroles and spreadsheets

When our church offered Rosa sanctuary, our ordinary habits became a politics of hospitality.

by Isaac S. Villegas

On Art

“I left my land, my land did not leave me,” by Qais Al-Sindy

Baghdad-born artist Qais Al-Sindy, who now lives in California, knows what it means to carry a land, a people, and a tradition with him....

art selection and comment by Lil Copan

First Words

Love’s knowledge

We learn the most from those with whom we have a strong emotional bond.

by Peter W. Marty

From the Editors

The UN Security Council couldn’t stop Russia’s war against Ukraine

The need to reimagine its structure has never been greater.

Screen Time

Evelyn Wang saves the multiverse

Everything Everywhere All At Once reveals that on the other side of finitude is chaos—and love.

by Kathryn Reklis

News

First nine women ordained as Lutheran pastors in Poland

The Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland took a historic step on May 7, as Presiding Bishop Jerzy Samiec ordained nine women to the priesthood at a service in Warsaw’s Holy Trinity Church....

People

Feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether dies at 85

Scholar and theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether died on May 21 following a long illness. She was 85. Ruether, a Catholic, is widely considered to be one of the founding mothers of Christian feminist theology....

by Dawn Araujo-Hawkins

People

Vashti McKenzie named interim head of National Council of Churches

Bishop Vashti McKenzie has been named interim president and general secretary of the National Council of Churches, the ecumenical organization announced on May 10....

by Adelle M. Banks

People

Shuly Rubin Schwartz inaugurated as chancellor of Jewish Theological Seminary

On May 17, Shuly Rubin Schwartz was officially inaugurated as the first female chancellor of Jewish Theological Seminary, the flagship school of Conservative Judaism....

by Dawn Araujo-Hawkins