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March 11, 2020

Volume 137, Issue #6

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Features

A church returns land to American Indians

“This is decolonized land,” a young woman said. “This is a liberated zone.”

by Terra Brockman

Sidebar

Sky Roosevelt-Morris on the meaning of Four Winds

When we talk about decolonization, we’re talking not only about giving land back but about decolonizing our minds and our lives.

by Sky Roosevelt-Morris

Sidebar

Jolynne Locust Woodcock on the meaning of Four Winds

We know what's under the foundation—it’s the land, it‘s our ancestors.

by Jolynne Locust Woodcock

Critical Essay

Jesus doesn’t explain suffering

He faces it.

by Frank G. Honeycutt

What an open door to asylum seekers looks like

A Laredo pastor and his family are hard at work helping others, on both sides of the border.

by Amy Frykholm

The Oscars recognize Toy Story’s evolution

It is the nature of a creature—or toy, or movie franchise—to outgrow its context and move on.

by Claire Miller Colombo

Books

Are humans terrible?

Maybe not, say new books by Richard Wrangham and Nicholas Christakis.

by David A. Hoekema

Dorothy Sayers and her equally fascinating friends

How they engaged culture in troubling times

by Martha Greene Eads

What if Christianity never existed?

Walter Scheidel’s tour de force of world history is based almost entirely on counterfactuals.

by Tony Jones

N. T. Wright insists that Jesus is the starting point of natural theology

Wright’s rereading of scripture is brilliant. Too bad he’s so disparaging of other viewpoints.

by Jason Byassee

Are we idol worshipers?

Stephen Fowl’s fresh approach to the study of idolatry

by Brad East

Departments

Faith Matters

God’s complex music

The song I was created to live within and become

by Brian Bantum

In Europe, church taxes are voluntary. People pay them anyway.

But for how long?

by Philip Jenkins

On Art

Holy Family, by Nabil Anani

A founding member of the League of Palestinian Artists, Nabil Anani has helped cultivate the contemporary arts movement in the Palestinian territories....

art selection and comment by Lil Copan

From the Editors

What is federally protected land for?

The Trump administration is treating it as plunder. The Antiquities Act saw it as a bearer of stories and wonders.

First Words

Loving your political enemy at the National Prayer Breakfast

Arthur Brooks gave the room an important assignment. President Trump turned it down.

by Peter W. Marty

News

Slave narrative author’s legacy reconsidered

He was a slave from Senegal who wrote in Arabic. Or was he an Arab prince? He was a scholar who memorized vast passages of the Qur’an and mastered numerous Islamic texts. Or were his writings unintelligible? He was a devout Muslim....

by Yonat Shimron

PBS project uses faith to show ‘what it really means to be American’

As part of its 50th anniversary celebration, PBS has launched a multimedia storytelling project focused, in part, on faith and religion in the United States....

by Dawn Araujo-Hawkins

More US firms are providing faith-based support for employees

It has become standard practice for US corporations to assure employees of support regardless of their race, gender, or sexual orientation....

by David Crary

Amid rise in anti-Semitism, Jews find value in being conspicuously Jewish

Pedestrians who encounter Rabbi Levi Greenberg, of El Paso, Texas, know that the Chabad rabbi, who wears a black hat and a long beard, is a Hasidic Jew. Sometimes they ask him why he dresses as he does....

by Menachem Wecker

Yale Divinity School receives largest donation in school history for green building project

Last month, Yale Divinity School received the largest gift commitment in the institution’s history when George and Carol Bauer pledged $15 million toward the construction of what is believed to be the world’s largest sustainable residential comple...

by Dawn Araujo-Hawkins