1. Katherine Willis Pershey: Please, liberal Christians, read Eugene Peterson
I’m not too proud to beg.
2. Brandon Ambrosino: Confession: I don’t want Trump to go to heaven
Hearing him admit that he might not be first in line at the pearly gates was surreal.
3. Various authors: What is the Bible for?
We asked dozens of writers to respond to this question in seven words or less, as well as to expand on their response in a few sentences.
4. Julie Faith Parker: In the Bible, gender is not binary
The Bible employs many merisms, in which two contrasting words stand in for a whole spectrum. “Male and female” is one of them.
5. Liz Charlotte Grant: The certainty summit
In 1978, a who’s who of conservative evangelical leaders met in Chicago to draft a statement on biblical inerrancy. It would change the course of church and state.
6. Jason G. Edwards: Walter Brueggemann’s gift of disruption
In his hands, the Bible was a living, aching, burning thing.
7. Chris Thiessen: Kendrick Lamar is playing a different game
The “great American game” is played to win and to exclude. Lamar’s halftime show made the case for turning our attention to something better.
8. Mac Loftin: J. D. Vance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the parable of the Good Samaritan
The vice president’s mangling of the Christian ordo amoris is just a smokescreen for the largest deportation operation in American history.
9. James K. A. Smith: A Christian case against capitalism
Liberals accept the political need to keep liberal billionaires happy. Leftists don’t think there should be any billionaires. A review of Phil Christman’s Why Christians Should be Leftists.
10. Danielle Tumminio Hansen: My artificial chaplains
While recovering from a hiking accident, I posed the same theological question to multiple AI spiritual counselors.
11. Peter W. Marty: Dad
In memoriam: Martin E. Marty (1928–2025)
12. Richard Lischer: How shall we render?
Thankfully, the Christian tradition is filled with models of resistance to unjust leaders.
13. Zac Koons: The priesthood of all chatbots?
I’m sure there are good uses for AI in our churches. Prayer and preaching aren’t among them.
14. C. Andrew Doyle and Stanley Hauerwas: The church cannot bless war
A Christianity that affirms the state’s wars is not Christianity. It is idolatry.
15. Isaac S. Villegas: American hell
In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr.’s confidence in the politics of progressivism dimmed. Judgment became his refrain.
16. Kelly Brown Douglas: What does it mean to be a Christian in these times?
We have a cross at the center of our faith, and we need to start acting like it.
17. McKenzie Watson-Fore: Dear Jesus, Am I broken enough yet?
At youth group and church camp, I learned to perform my own unworthiness. It took years to recognize the spiritual harm this caused.
18. Lilia Ellis: The Kirk assassination and the scandal of enemy love
The kind of love Jesus taught may not be popular. But the alternative has already shown its rotten fruit.
19. Stephanie Perdew: The rise and fall of children’s Sunday school
Faith formation isn’t dead. It’s happening outside the classroom.
20. Jeff Jay: Praying the imprecatory psalms with Bonhoeffer
How did these psalms about enemies feel in 1940? How do they feel today?
21. W. Clark Gilpin: Martin Marty’s unfinished conversations
The historian’s energetic affirmation of the unfinished—whether books or lives—invariably made encounters with him memorable events.
22. Gary G. Yerkey: Bishop Budde among the Swedes
In September, Episcopal bishop Mariann Edgar Budde will travel to her mother’s homeland at the invitation of the Stockholm Cathedral.
23. Mark Glanville: Ten Commandments, zero context
Many lawmakers want to see the commandments displayed in public schools. Are they also interested in the Hebrew Bible’s ethical demands?
24. Lyle Enright: Postliberalism and the romantic lie
I love René Girard. I don’t love that J. D. Vance loves him, too.
25. Alex DeMarco: How I became religiously multiple
I’m on a personal journey into Buddhist–Christian belonging.
