Features
God’s relentless gaze
The reverent, subversive Gilead
A musician meets Flannery O’Connor at the crossroads
Please, liberal Christians, read Eugene Peterson
The inverse wisdom of a second-century martyr
The parasocial power of AI
A growing landscape of religious trauma
Voices
Stephanie Perdew
A day of mourning each November
I have been asked more than once to participate in civic Thanksgiving services. And more than once, I’ve declined.
Melissa Florer-Bixler
Shared songs with new meaning
My colleague’s Black church was taking a break from anti-racism work with White churches. So we decided to sing together.
Julian DeShazier
Pastors and professionals
The church doesn’t just need leadership development. It needs processes, ongoing assessment, and shared accountability.
Peter Choi
What type of knowledge does the psalmist have?
Cultural anthropologist Johannes Fabian’s work has helped me better understand scripture—and my own faith.
Alejandra Oliva
My summer of acedia
I encountered Kathleen Norris’s Acedia and Me at a time when just about everything felt like more trouble than it was worth.
Phil Christman
More thoughts on private morality
I’m back with another column, and I’m still being a killjoy.
Books
Illuminating the icons
Theologian Eve Tibbs’s book on Eastern Orthodox iconography is accessible, enlightening, and beautifully illustrated.
Weeping with the prophets
Richard Rohr begs readers to journey from anger to sadness to compassionate love.
Writing through grief
In her new memoir, Miriam Toews explores connections between suicide, silence, and writing.
Aura et labora
In Robert Baird’s debut novel, a religion scholar’s young son starts emitting a holy glow that might or might not be real.
Punk disciples
Theologian Robert Cady Saler considers Death to the World, an Eastern Orthodox movement that is both thoroughly Christian and thoroughly punk.
Hope in the face of racist backlash
Aran Shetterly celebrates Greensboro massacre survivors Nelson and Joyce Johnson as great moral leaders.
Mennonites and the long shadow of ethnic identity
Denominations often struggle to separate faith from ethnicity. Hyung Jin Kim Sun has experienced this firsthand.
Reclaiming “church politics”
Ross Kane argues that politics is about congregational life and governance—not just statecraft.
A river runs through us
Robert Macfarlane helps us appreciate that life is not a possession. It is a process we participate in.
Preaching outside the box
Donyelle McCray takes readers on a tour of the edges of homiletics, exploring Black Americans’ gospel proclamation in various forms.
What does White Christian nationalism have to do with yoga?
In his new book, Stewart Home analyzes the wellness-to-fascism pipeline.
The self-appointed cowboy messiah
Rachel Wagner traces the way frontier fantasies and apocalyptic faith fuel today’s gun-obsessed culture.
Departments
Art that stretches us
A time for nonviolence
