church

Religious identity in the US now follows partisan affiliation, says demographer Ryan Burge. But congregations could still be places where that sorting gets undone.

Her spellbinding novel in stories transforms Baja California into a dreamscape of violence, longing, and hard-won grace.

Will Willimon’s story of his childhood congregation contrasts the salt-of-the-earth people who formed him with the conservative minority that took over later.

Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor offer a dizzying tour of the concept across geography and history.

When Bonhoeffer stops being a symbol, he can start being a guide.

Black autistic pastor and disability scholar Lamar Hardwick shows how ideas around race and disability can cost people their lives.

Ross Kane argues that politics is about congregational life and governance—not just statecraft.

Randall Balmer, David Gushee, and Tim Alberta diagnose what’s gone wrong.

My decades of church life have been full of the stuff one might expect from a place that promises God and only sometimes delivers.

If I could give every new pastor a gift in their first year of preaching, I’d give them a friend like Jessica Jacobs.

Tiffany Brooks offers much more than just another exvangelical anger manual.

Amy Kenny’s call for disability justice leads with righteous anger but offers grace.

And 10 reasons to stay.

When Asian American women are rendered invisible, the whole church is diminished.

Influencer culture and LDS theology fit together surprisingly well.

Jordan Kisner writes about seeing the world and the self.

Bruce Rogers-Vaughn believes that modern capitalism isn't simply anti-government. It's also anti-human and anti-church.

Teenage girls navigate a tough landscape. There are tools the church can offer them.

Many will look at the tribal and ethnic tensions that exist all around the world as a problem as old as human civilization. Isn’t this a strong argument for the reality that the racism that was practiced by white/western Europe is indeed just a reflection of what has always been?

It’s important to understand the dysfunctions at church as systems. We know this. Most of us learn this in seminary. But then we get caught up in things, and it all feels so personal. So it’s good to remind ourselves of the reasons why systemic thinking makes sense.