Amy Frykholm

"One of the powers of debt is to isolate us. We have to overcome that isolation, and it's tricky."

In her 11th novel Toni Morrison returns to the foundation of most of her fiction: childhood and its traumatic effects.

Past efforts at "character education" have operated with a shallow understanding of character. The Expeditionary Learning model goes deeper.

Read the main article on the Expeditionary Learning model.

Seven Laws of Salem

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Last year, the U.S. took thousands of "family units" into custody at the southern border. Nearly every woman cites violence as the reason she fled.

Early last summer, the Obama administration opened a detention center in the remote town of Artesia, New Mexico, in order to detain Central American women who cross the southern border with their children. The facility was a centerpiece of the administration’s policy of family detention, which aims to “send a message,” as Department of Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson said, that asylum seekers from these countries are not welcome.

"People sometimes come in guarded and defensive. But they want to be understood, and they want to minister well."

"Students don't have time for electives. Rather than change the curriculum, we embedded a discussion of religion and science in the classes they already take."

When the congregation starts reciting the creed, I do one of two things: argue with it in my head, or zone out and stop listening.

This summer I am going to be teaching at a Kenyon College writing workshop designed for clergy who want to hone their writing skills for conversations beyond their congregations and denominations. The program, Beyond Walls, is envisioned as an interfaith conversation with writers and clergy from both Jewish and Christian traditions. I will be teaching essay writing along with Rodger Kamenetz, and he and I each have an essay in this month’s Beyond Walls e-mag.

“Two things about my own life became clear: I really did understand both sides, and I didn’t understand them at all.”

At the end of Marilynne Robinson’s latest novel Lila, the title character envisions heaven in an intensely communal way. In light of that communal vision, Century associate editor Amy Frykholm gathered together three avid Robinson readers—Rachel Stone, Peter Boumgarden, and Amber Noel—for a conversation about the novel.

For Ben Quash, scripture and tradition are givens. Our task is to discover and reinterpret what we have been given.

This week, at a refurbished camp for oil and gas workers, the Department of Homeland Security officially opened a new detention center for women and children who cross the southern U.S. border. In DHS director Jeh Johnson’s view, this is a move to prevent people from crossing the border at all. He wants to stem the tide of “illegal migration,” and he believes that detention is one means to do so. “Frankly, we want to send a message that our border is not open to illegal migration, and if you come here, you should not expect to simply be released,” said Johnson. Let’s look at the positive side for a moment.

“Truth is in constant transit. The difference between a liberal and a conservative, I think, is the stomach you have for the journey.”

In a crucial scene of Marilynne Robinson’s new novel, Lila spends the morning thinking, has lunch, then thinks some more. Why isn’t this boring?

To give

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The old stereotype is that evangelicals are unable or unwilling to talk about sex. Lately, the reality is the opposite.