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May 4, 2022

Volume 139, Issue #9

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Features

Discovering our voices together after my wife’s stroke

With her own voice changed by the stroke, she wanted to hear the Bible spoken aloud by her husband.

by Frank G. Honeycutt

Ambition used to be a vice

Now we tend to see it as a virtue—at least for some people.

by Adam Hearlson

The book of Job is a parody

Sometimes I picture its author looking down at us and shaking his head.

by Kathryn Lopez

How should Asian American Christians respond to anti-Asian racism?

Be like water: clear, humble, persistent, and restorative.

by Russell Jeung

Interviews

Eastern wisdom for Western Christians

“Looking east can free us a bit from our anxiety or ecclesiastical culture wars or general air of being panicked and overstretched.”

Timothy Jones interviews Rowan Williams

QAnon moms

The infiltration of online parenting spaces began as a slow burn. During the pandemic, it’s picked up speed.

by Dawn Araujo-Hawkins

Books

Lisa Sharon Harper’s memoir of the legacy of slavery

Fortune gives a wrenching account of intergenerational trauma and its costs.

by Jessica Mesman

A rabbi’s poetic wrestling with faith after the Shoah

In Yehiel Poupko’s poems, Jewish belief in God groans under the burden of divine silence.

by M. Daniel Carroll

The end of endless wars?

Andrew Bacevich and Samuel Moyn each seek a reckoning on how the United States uses its military abroad.

by Amy Frykholm

Departments

Faith Matters

God-as-parent is a radical metaphor

It’s not possible to parent without experiencing risk, weakness, pain, and transformation.

by Debie Thomas

Byzantine and Catholic

Millions of Christians worship like the Orthodox but are aligned with Rome. Andy Warhol was one of them.

by Philip Jenkins

First Words

Good parenting is rooted in warm relationships

But sometimes it also requires clever tactics.

by Peter W. Marty

On Art

Life in the House of Mercy, by D. Brendan Johnson

Brendan Johnson, a medical student, podcast host, and graduate of the theology, medicine, and culture fellowship at Duke Divinity School, brings the ordinary materials of his woodcuts—ink, wood, chisels—in conversation with the wondrous acts of he...

art selection and comment by Lil Copan

From the Editors

Three reasons gerrymandering is bad for democracy (no matter who does it)

It’s not just about an overall partisan advantage.

News

Know Your Mothers project returns

After Cara Quinn became a Christian in her early 20s, she began wondering where all the women were....

by Emily McFarlan Miller

California activists seek to preserve church land acquired by early Japanese immigrants

The words “Jesus Lives” are emblazoned across a dilapidated, unoccupied structure in Orange County. The building’s windows are boarded up....

by Alejandra Molina

Places of worship tackle the affordable housing shortage

The 90-year-old Southeast Tabernacle Baptist Church has been a spiritual refuge in Ward Eight in Washington, DC, for decades....

by Kristi Eaton

UMC pastor honors Black church with Simon of Cyrene musical

Henry Masters has a thing for Simon of Cyrene....

by Sam Hodges

Orthodox Jewish women scholars’ growing authority recognized in publishing

According to the Talmud, the first instructions on how Jews should celebrate the holiday of Purim were set down by one of its founders: Queen Esther, who with her cousin Mordechai helped save the Jews in Persia from the evil Haman....

by Beth Kissileff

People

Deborah Lipstadt confirmed as US antisemitism envoy

Following an eight-month delay, on March 30 the US Senate unanimously confirmed noted antisemitism scholar Deborah Lipstadt to be the State Department’s special envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism....

by Yonat Shimron