Features
What is a church’s money for?
As a pastor, I am both grateful for our congregation’s healthy endowment and distressed by it. I don’t think I’m alone.
Did God intervene to save Trump’s life?
Underneath this question lies layer upon layer of ever more troubling theological questions.
My childhood congregation was a progressive Christian dream come true
So why don’t more of the people who grew up there practice Christianity as adults?
OncoMouse and me
A genetically engineered animal helped me rethink the imago Dei. It might also save my life.
A church politics of nondomination
Liberal Anglicans and Methodists often face a tension between LGBTQ inclusion and anti-colonialism. But we don’t have to choose.
Moltmann the teacher
Studying theology with him offered me new possibilities for justice and abundant life.
Hair like wool
Both Daniel and Revelation compare God’s hair to wool. White enslavers used to say the same thing about hair like mine.
What is the rainbow in Genesis a reminder of?
This year during Pride month, God seems to have a lot of rainbow defenders online. But they aren’t getting the Bible story quite right.
My dad’s old Bible offers more questions than answers
What can I learn from what he underlined—or didn’t?
The post-Catholic Joyce
Filtered through my deconstructed Catholic faith, Ulysses holds up surprisingly well.
Coffee justice in Mexico
Café Justo’s alternative to the fair trade model keeps the means of production—and most of the profit—in the local community.
Ukrainian military chaplains learn pluralism on the job
What to do if a soldier from another denomination asks for a prayer?
A land dispute in the Old City
Armenian activists in Jerusalem are outraged over an agreement to lease communal land to a hotel developer.
Making room in the UMC for the Spirit’s work
The denomination’s new regionalization plan is a marked break from its colonial hangover.
What’s behind the grad student strike at Boston University?
My students are being financially exploited—based on a social imaginary that doesn’t reflect the realities of higher ed.
Missed opportunities at the UMC general conference
We took some good steps. But we are too afraid to name certain truths.