Voices
Heidi Neumark
My retirement to-do list
Several times a day I need to tell myself: I am not busy. I am not in a hurry.
Samuel Wells
Choosing solidarity with God
In a sense, I am asking my parishioners the same thing John Wesley asked: Are you going on?
Yolanda Pierce
A poet’s truth at the graveside
At the interment, the holy words I needed to hear weren’t from the Bible.
Rachel Mann
Compassion makes us human
When we fail to be compassionate, the refrain “Well, we’re only human” is exactly wrong.
Rachel Mann
Atonement without participation?
In the substitution theory, God simply does stuff for us. What about the relational God of the Bible?
Heidi Neumark
Organizing is about people’s agency
Unlike social services and advocacy, which are all about being helpers
Debie Thomas
Each of my dyings
I’m in a stage of life where I find myself praying the same prayer again and again.
Isaac S. Villegas
Nonviolent crisis response in my city
I wish Durham’s HEART program had existed when my friend Joe was killed.
Brian Bantum
Living by kinship, not consumption
When I’m tempted to click “Add to cart,” I hear creation groaning.
Melissa Florer-Bixler
Extravagant consumption
For Jesus, the inverse of scarcity isn’t abundance—it’s accumulation.
Philip Jenkins
Rose Macaulay was ahead of her time
In Crewe Train, the neglected Anglo-Catholic novelist tells the story of a woman who resolutely does not fit in.
Samuel Wells
Lessons from downsizing my office
As I worked my way through old files and photos, I met with three kinds of sadness.
Julian DeShazier
Reimagining how we reimagine church
We need to end our obsession with novelty and corporate jargon.
Brian Bantum
Transformed by the dog I never wanted
She’s helping me answer the question, “Why this life instead of another?”
Rachel Mann
Falling into metaphor
I heard a variation on the Eden story that offers a new look at Eve.
Isaac S. Villegas
The altar in my attic
My boxes of old sermons are a monument to my church’s ongoing conversation with God.