Browse Topics

Let It Go

She spoke to me. I know it was Her. I have no words with which to tell you how sure I am that it was the Mother. Trust me.

Sunbeams

True prophets sometimes, false prophets always, have fanatical adherents.

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Believers

Now he’s here, and there had better be something holy in this darkness. So he puts his hands up and opens his eyes as wide as he can and says he has a message from God. Slowly everyone turns. They see a skinny kid who is not quite a man speaking words that are hard to unravel because of his accent.

One Of Us

Once upon a time there was an abbot of a monastery who was very good friends with the rabbi of a local synagogue. It was Europe, and times were hard. . . .

Love Thy Neighbor

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove On Race, Faith, And Resistance

Most black evangelicals didn’t vote for him. Most Latino evangelicals didn’t vote for him. But 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump.

The Good Samaritan

from The Gospel Of Luke

Once a certain scribe stood up and said, “Rabbi, what must I do to gain eternal life?”

Leaps Of Faith

An immigrant’s decision, a gambler’s dilemma, a daughter’s grief

Why Religion Endures

On a spectrum of postures toward religious faith that runs from organized hostility to muffled contempt to resigned forbearance to never-crosses-my-mind indifference to against-my-better-judgment curiosity to serious interest to fellow-traveling to heartfelt engagement to missionary fervor, where do you place yourself, and how does that dispose you to others’ positions?

Embracing Ignorance

Jack Miles On His Path From Belief To Disbelief And Back

We’re all stuck with ignorance as we move from quandary to quandary. What I want to do is make a case for religion as one of the means to cope with this irremediable human condition.

Sunbeams

Man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it. . . . This craving for community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky