Features
Being devoted to being inspired
Mapping my city’s moral geography
Praying the imprecatory psalms with Bonhoeffer
Postliberalism and the romantic lie
Shiny happy confrontations
Trump’s artificial images
Voices
Rachel Mann
The silent, suffering God
I’ve spent weeks in the hospital this year. I keep waiting for God to speak.
Brian Bantum
The rhythm of a difficult song
Recently I reread the Psalms. I could feel the turbulence of the world that gave birth to them.
Kelly Brown Douglas
Freedom and the price of the ticket
James Baldwin reminds us that those who seek to police the freedom of others are, ironically, the least free.
Peter Choi
Terrible leaders of the Bible
When I remember the story of Jonah the insufferable prophet, I am filled with a strange hope.
Isaac S. Villegas
Confounding words
In the gospels, sometimes Jesus responds to questions much like the young Bob Dylan did in interviews.
Samuel Wells
Dear Israel
There are some things I understand and others I cannot.
Books
What is English Christianity?
Peter Ackroyd sees a special historical relationship between the development of a distinctively English sensibility and that of the English church.
When Frances Perkins took on the bigots
According to historian Rebecca Graham, FDR’s labor secretary saved tens of thousands of refugees from the Nazis—and narrowly avoided impeachment.
Priced out
Patrick Condon builds on existing inequality research to focus on one big problem: the price of urban land.
When monsters preach
In the mythological universes created by horror films, Jesuit priest Ryan Duns finds insights about God.
What do people in their 20s want from church?
Churches try all kinds of tricks. But new research indicates that the answers are surprisingly traditional.
The prison writings of Alexei Navalny
Patriot is a posthumous memoir of resistance to Putin. It is also, at its core, a love story.
The apocalypse of dying
In a collection of short stories and theopoetic interludes, two pastors throw readers into the visceral body horror of end-of-life care.
Mother Emanuel’s long struggle
In his history of the Charleston congregation, Kevin Sack frames the 2015 mass murder as the culmination of 200 years of persecution.
Departments
Gratitude for Douglas John Hall, Christian Buddhism, and more reader feedback
Christian progress, Christian regress
What is religious freedom for?
