Voices
Rachel Mann
Asking “Who am I?” with Bonhoeffer
As I face unexpected early retirement, I tell myself that the answer is not yet known.
Benjamin J. Dueholm
A religion too wild to nationalize
After 250 years, US Christianity remains too diverse, splintered, and strange to be conscripted into any one political project.
Stephanie Perdew
American Decius
The Roman emperor staged a patriotic revival to win back the gods’ favor. The empire fell anyway.
Julian DeShazier
Does it matter what happened?
After years of listening to people tell their stories, I’ve begun to think that healing depends less on facts than on meaning.
Brian Bantum
At home with the Baptists
At my first gathering of Baptists in decades, I found something I didn’t know I was missing: testimony.
Melissa Florer-Bixler
What if mercy matters more than empathy?
Christian compassion begins not with imagining another person’s pain but with recognizing our shared dependence on grace.
Phil Christman
Other people’s greatness
I want to be like David Lynch. And my pastor. And my wife. But there aren’t enough hours in the day.
Stephanie Saldaña
Looking out the window in wartime
We still have power: We can choose whether to give violence the last word.
Brian Bantum
Saved by bad art
As AI continues to proliferate, I’ve been inviting my students to create something—anything.
Kelly Brown Douglas
A house divided and indecent
The question is no longer just whether we can resolve our differences. It’s whether we still recognize one another’s basic humanity.
Stephanie Perdew
Reading scripture with Augustine
The bishop of Hippo isn’t just for JD Vance and Mike Johnson—and Bible studies aren’t just for evangelicals.
Rachel Mann
Holy uprising
I’ve long seen the ascension story as an absurdity. John Donne helps me see it as a revolution.
Peter Choi
The room next door to faith
I am learning that questioning religion is not the same as abandoning it.
Julian DeShazier
In the valley of echoes
People often respond not to the person in front of them but to reverberations from the past.
Melissa Florer-Bixler
Has worship become a luxury good?
As working-class stability erodes, congregations are quietly remaking themselves in the image of the middle class.
Rachel Mann
The great and terrible meaning of war
War is symbolic of humanity’s failure to live in the peaceable kingdom. Yet where there are humans there will always be a search for meaning.
Benjamin J. Dueholm
The dangers of institutional neglect
How often do we think about the Holy Roman Empire?
Alejandra Oliva
Sermons without church
For someone who doesn’t call herself a Christian, I listen to a lot of sermons. They’re providing some much-needed sustenance these days.
Brian Bantum
The genders within us
I am more and more convinced that trans people’s gender multiplicity will point us to our collective liberation.