https://sojo.net/feeds/articles Sojourners Magazine Articles en https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/questions-reflection-and-action 1. Theologian Lisa A. Dellinger of the Chickasaw Nation references a selective view of settler history that persists in the Oklahoma public schools she once attended. What were you taught about United States history? In what ways did your faith upbringing challenge or reinforce myths of U.S. exceptionalism? Tue, 26 May 2026 09:24:57 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/questions-reflection-and-action https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/in-this-time-of-great-reflection “In This Time of Great Reflection” is a hymn that lifts up the theme of the Puritan John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity.” Winthrop talked about the Massachusetts Bay Colony as “a city on a hill,” referencing Jesus’ image from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:14. In his use of this phrase, Winthrop wasn’t giving a sermon about American exceptionalism, as some later historical figures have suggested. As historian Daniel T. Rodgers explains in As a City on a Hill: The Story of America’s Most Famous Lay Sermon, Winthrop was actually delivering a warning: The eyes of the world would be on Massachusetts Bay to see if the colony would morally succeed in being loving, just, humble, good, neighborly, and kind. This hymn is a prayer that, as we reflect on our nation’s 250th anniversary, we will strive to be a morally responsible and community-building people; that we will repent of our sins and become as loving and humble as God is calling us to be. Tue, 26 May 2026 08:50:29 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/in-this-time-of-great-reflection https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/humor/we-dont-look-day-over-240 Why so glum, America? It’s almost your birthday, and a big one, too! How often does a country turn 250 years old!? (Well, actually, just once. A bunch of other countries have done it already.) Fri, 22 May 2026 12:23:41 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/humor/we-dont-look-day-over-240 https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/creator-healer-and-comforter From time eternal, we have felt you in the void. We have seen you in the stardust and in the lunar gleam that illuminated the void. We have seen you in molten rock and in the crystals and algae that became our rivers and our seas. Fri, 22 May 2026 12:13:49 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/creator-healer-and-comforter https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/when-our-faith-forgets-people As Christian nationalism continues to plague the United States, I find myself asking the question: Who pays the price when faith separates itself from humanity? History is clear. It is the children. The mothers. The women. The foreigners. The outsiders. The marginalized. Who reaps the reward when we reconnect faith to the unlimited compassion of Jesus? All of us. All of us. All of us. Never in my lifetime has it felt as critical as it feels right now to make Christianity Christ-like again. Critical, as in people are dying. Critical, as in babies are starving. Critical, as in we are losing our very souls. Fri, 22 May 2026 09:12:03 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/when-our-faith-forgets-people https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/when-bread-shared-cuando-el-pan-se-comparte The loaf is never owned, only passed from one set of hands to another. Thu, 21 May 2026 16:52:34 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/when-bread-shared-cuando-el-pan-se-comparte https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/actually-we-need-more-flags-church A FEW YEARS ago, when I served as an elder at a largely Black Caribbean Seventh-day Adventist church, I grew tired of seeing the U.S. flag at the front of our sanctuary. So, one Saturday after service, I decided to move it to a back room. It only rarely returned. (Imitate at your own risk.) This was not unprecedented behavior for me. In 2004, as a new sixth-grade student at my local SDA school, I learned that my teacher, wanting to instill respect for the U.S. flag, would have our class hoist and lower the flag at the beginning and end of each school day. I, however, wanted it to be known that the flag was just a piece of cloth—one that absolutely was allowed to touch the ground. And then, with an overconfident 11-year-old’s flair, I would demonstrate. This earned my immigrant parents a phone call from a classmate’s concerned parent. I was correctly told to stop my shenanigans. Thu, 21 May 2026 16:29:33 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/actually-we-need-more-flags-church https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/words-across-history-expose-americas-deepest-divide In All We Say, Ben Rhodes, a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, examines 15 speeches that have defined and shaped the history of the United States. If you were to read the final two speeches back-to-back, Obama’s “race speech” and President Donald Trump’s second inaugural address, you’d likely experience an emotional whiplash. The first is delivered by an acclaimed modern orator, the second by someone who tends toward bombast and offensive tangents. Thu, 21 May 2026 16:15:04 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/words-across-history-expose-americas-deepest-divide https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/deep-depression-philosopher-turned-mystics IN HIS BOOK Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark, author James K.A. Smith traces his own evolution through a personal “dark night of the soul.” Marooned by depression, Smith experiences a crisis of meaning, foreign terrain for him as a philosophy professor and preacher. In the context of what Smith calls our “knowledge economy,” the discipline of philosophy encourages academics to know, define, profess, defend, and win. Thu, 21 May 2026 14:58:50 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/deep-depression-philosopher-turned-mystics https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/new-and-noteworthy-art-desert-theology-and-more Palestinian Insights From Bethlehem, Rev. Munther Isaac hosts the Christ at the Checkpoint podcast, talking with theologians, pastors, and leaders to share Palestinian Christian perspectives on Israel, Palestine, and what American Christians misunderstand about the ongoing conflict in the region. Across the Divide Thu, 21 May 2026 14:46:08 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/new-and-noteworthy-art-desert-theology-and-more https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/what-can-film-made-during-bicentennial-teach-us-today “WE MUST BE doin’ somethin’ right to last 200 years,” proclaims the opening song of Robert Altman’s 1975 magnum opus Nashville. Over a dizzying five days, a cast of dozens of characters, all of whom feel true to life, stagger to put together a concert in support of a populist third-party presidential candidate. But the film’s plot is ultimately beside the point; what matters is the spirit Altman captures. Thu, 21 May 2026 14:34:00 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/what-can-film-made-during-bicentennial-teach-us-today https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/letter-my-fellow-faith-activists DEAR FELLOW FAITH ACTIVIST, Over the years, I have seen how our country’s anniversary remains a source of pride for many, told as it is through the lens of cultural purity and exceptionalism. I regularly witness the country’s birthday celebration as if from a church overflow room, through a shiny screen—a flattened dream, as it were. Thu, 21 May 2026 13:52:34 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/letter-my-fellow-faith-activists https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/one-burning-bush-used-be-enough IT'S AMAZING TO THINK there was a time when God could get one’s attention by setting a single bush on fire. Now, apparently, it takes the entire planet. In the last 18 months or so, there’s been a lot of talk framing climate change as a lesser issue, that instead we’re concentrating on “affordability,” and so on. If that’s been true, our intermission is coming to an end. Meteorologists are predicting that a new El Niño will form in the Pacific later this summer, and that there’s a good chance it could be a “super El Niño,” only the third such occurrence in the last 30 years. But even if it’s just a “normal” massive injection of heat into the atmosphere, it will mean enormous trouble. Wed, 20 May 2026 13:47:03 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/one-burning-bush-used-be-enough https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/face-death-live-humanly IN 1973, in the context of the Vietnam War, Episcopal theologian and lawyer William Stringfellow (a Sojourners contributing editor until his death in 1985) published his classic work An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land. He wrote: “A nation ... may pursue such a course which so demeans human life and so profits death that it must be said ... that that nation ... is in truth governed by the power of death. ... The biblical story of such a realm is the saga of Babylon [in Revelation]. The extraordinary in-stance in the present time of the same situation is the United States of America.” Stringfellow’s analysis was profoundly biblical and remains the most trenchant theological analysis of American life, culture, and politics published in the last half century. As the United States marks 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, there’s value to engaging Stringfellow’s voice in our current national conversation. Wed, 20 May 2026 13:37:38 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/face-death-live-humanly https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/my-family-fought-country-we-wont-celebrate-it AS A CHICKASAW child, I grew up in the shadow of Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. I fell asleep to the drone of airplane engines and awoke to the sight of bombers, fighter jets, and AWACS (airborne warning and control system) planes in the sky above. I am well acquainted with how militarism permeates every aspect of the daily life of Americans. I recognize the stories used to promote this nation’s heroic “exceptionalism” on the world stage. This summer, as the United States marks 250 years of independence from British colonial oppression, our screens will fill with U.S. flags, fireworks, and military service members in full dress uniform. These images of patriotism, opportunities to consume rituals of collective belonging, and narratives of freedom and justice are presented as the aspirations of a Christian God and Christian country. Each soldier’s self-sacrifice for the nation is framed as Christ-like and their blood as poured out for our democratic salvation. Wed, 20 May 2026 13:23:03 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/my-family-fought-country-we-wont-celebrate-it https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/what-can-we-give-us-its-250th-birthday How do we commemorate the 250th birthday of the United States while resisting the extremes of either hubris and triumphalism or apathy and self-loathing? This semiquincentennial year arrives amid great peril and polarization: Our democratic freedoms and our system of checks and balances are under severe threat, distrust of institutions is pervasive, and even the term “democracy” has become fraught and partisan. So, perhaps one of the best and most unifying ways we can mark this birthday is to make this a year of civic renewal. Mon, 18 May 2026 15:28:30 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/what-can-we-give-us-its-250th-birthday https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/editor-chief-god-hates-bad-parties MY FOUR-WORD SUMMARY of the book of Amos: God hates bad parties. Aiming serious prophetic fire at powerful people who host showy religious festivals instead of attending to the needs of the poor, telling truth, or acting with integrity, God doesn’t mince words: “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies” (5:21). Mon, 18 May 2026 15:16:21 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/editor-chief-god-hates-bad-parties https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/good-news-us-christians-we-arent-special THE SOLDIER AT the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu could not have yet been in his 20s. By my estimation, none of them, standing there sweltering in the sun with their sprouting mustaches, were. Names from the Global South were stitched onto their uniforms. My grandfather joined the ancestors some years before, but this was my first time back in Hawai’i since his passing. We traced his steps backward across the Pacific to return him to my grandmother and their childhood home. Long dormant grief flared and family members grimaced awkwardly as the ritual began. The soldiers’ cadence, turns, bugling—the ceremony of it all! Stars and stripes creased as if made of origami paper, delicate movements of the hand like a master at a tea ceremony, reminding me of long afternoons learning scouting creeds, knots, and flag-folding technique while away at camp: “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country ... .” Mon, 18 May 2026 14:14:03 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/good-news-us-christians-we-arent-special https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/after-250-years-christians-owe-america-truth NEXT DOOR TO the West Wing, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, you’ll find portraits of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. Visitors to the exhibit—part of the White House’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding—scan QR codes to watch AI-generated videos of these figures come to life. But the history this gallery presents is carefully curated and conveniently cleansed. Take Thomas Jefferson: His talking portrait makes no mention of the hundreds of people he enslaved, including Sally Hemmings, whom he forced to bear multiple of his children. Instead, the animated Jefferson praises the “empire of liberty” created by the Louisiana Purchase—ignoring the First Nations already living there and the forced removals that followed. John Adams repeats the anachronistic quip much beloved by today’s Far Right: “Facts do not care about our feelings.” Benjamin Franklin fails to mention that he had once been an enslaver but by the 1780s had become a vocal abolitionist. None of the signers mention that they cut a section where Jefferson lambasted King George for “captivating and carrying [Africans] into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.” History weeps. Mon, 18 May 2026 13:26:49 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/june-2026/after-250-years-christians-owe-america-truth https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/editors-vulnerability-and-pentecost Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:09:35 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/editors-vulnerability-and-pentecost https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/humor/how-atone-your-maga-era DONALD TRUMP’S APPROVAL ratings are hitting all-time lows, even among white evangelicals. One month into his second term, 55% of evangelicals were “extremely or very confident Trump acts ethically in office.” One year later, that has dropped to 40%. At long last, could evangelical Christians be coming around to the idea that the 34-count felon president might not be the Christ conduit they hoped? If you are one of those disillusioned Christians, welcome to the other side! It’s not any more fun over here (ICE watches and doomscrolling really eat into hobby time), but at least the food and music are more flavorful. Wed, 29 Apr 2026 09:23:46 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/humor/how-atone-your-maga-era https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/are-we-guardians-gate As we move from Easter through Pentecost, we witness the Spirit of God very much alive and showing up, often where we least expect. Taken together, these reflections pay attention to the ways God keeps speaking and the ways we are tempted to silence, dismiss, or police those appearances. My daughter and I recently watched Zootopia 2. The utopia created there starts to show its cracks as Judy Hopps uncovers the truth about how reptiles were forcefully erased and pushed out of the land. A daring adventure and reclamation ensues, all because Judy, a rabbit, is willing to listen to a snake—the very animal everyone has villainized. I was reminded of the movie as I read these lectionary passages, because what happens to our own scriptural story if we listen to Stephen, to Mary, to Eldad and Medad, to Hannah? What happens if we stop gatekeeping who gets to have a voice? Where might we uncover God if we were no longer covering up those we have deemed unworthy? Again and again in scripture (and in life), humans find it easier to preserve order than to risk disruption, easier to protect authority than to make room for revelation. But these lectionary texts bear witness to a Spirit who does not wait for permission but breaks through barriers in order to be heard. Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:41:56 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/are-we-guardians-gate https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/all-ears-heaven Who knows why you’re praying with such openness— maybe it’s the bell’s calling, maybe it’s the rising of quiet new faith. Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:29:02 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/all-ears-heaven https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/new-book-shows-vulnerabilitys-risks-and-rewards WE OFTEN WEIGH the cost of speaking up, considering the potential pitfalls of revealing our real thoughts or feelings when we think doing so carries risk. But do we consider carefully enough the cost of staying silent? And do we factor in the potential benefits of revealing our true selves? Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:19:53 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/new-book-shows-vulnerabilitys-risks-and-rewards https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/what-best-eco-autobiographies-reveal-about-us I CAN’T REMEMBER where I first came across the term “eco-autobiography.” But, like a longspine sandbur stuck to my sock, it’s a word that I can’t let go of. Eco-autobiography narrates one’s life in relationship to land, ancestors, and the more-than-human world. It includes both the good, those literal mountaintop moments of connection to creation, and the bad, those moments when one encounters the destruction of a beloved tract of land or water. Gary Paul Nabhan’s Water in the Desert is a master class on how to write a spiritual eco-autobiography. Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:02:05 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/what-best-eco-autobiographies-reveal-about-us https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/what-do-you-photograph-when-harm-no-longer-spectacular IN A STRIKING photo from August 2015, three kayakers on the Animas River near Durango, Colo., float in a plume of mustard-yellow water. They happened to be on the river the same morning that Environmental Protection Agency workers accidentally ruptured a retaining wall at the abandoned Gold King Mine upstream, sending 3 million gallons of wastewater contaminated with metals into southern Colorado’s rivers. According to the House Committee on Natural Resources, “EPA’s disaster dumped hundreds of tons of pollutants into a river that flows across four states—affecting farmers, treatment systems for safe drinking water and livelihoods, but no one has been punished.” Tue, 28 Apr 2026 15:53:01 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/what-do-you-photograph-when-harm-no-longer-spectacular https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/new-and-noteworthy-addressing-homelessness-john-dear-and-more Biblical Antiracism “The Antioch Podcast” is a weekly conversation among Christian antiracism educators working to deepen the white church’s reckoning with its long-standing expectation of assimilation. Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:03:23 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/new-and-noteworthy-addressing-homelessness-john-dear-and-more https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/placing-exit-8-conversation-cs-lewis IN THE FIRST scene of Genki Kawamura’s Exit 8, we meet a young man (Kazunari Ninomiya) headed to work on a crowded subway train. The man gets a shocking call from his ex-girlfriend. She’s pregnant, and they must decide what to do next. A dilemma emerges: Will the man go to the hospital to help his ex-girlfriend navigate their uncertain future, or will he ignore her and go to work? Tue, 28 Apr 2026 13:40:57 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/placing-exit-8-conversation-cs-lewis https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/time-traveling-trad-wife-explores-free-will THE QUESTION OF free will is best approached sideways. Rather than asking head-on whether we have agency in our lives, we should ask ourselves a more consequential question: What happens when we deviate from the life script we’ve been handed, especially when that life script is dictated by religion? This is the question that novelist and podcaster Caro Claire Burke explores in her debut novel, Yesteryear. The story follows the rise and fall of Natalie Heller Mills, a conservative trad wife social media influencer who suddenly finds herself transported to the 1800s. Homesteading—which had mostly been an act Natalie performed for Instagram, only possible thanks to a plethora of behind-the-scenes hired help—is suddenly overwhelmingly real, isolating, and cold. Yesteryear is an exploration of womanhood in the U.S. under capitalism and religious fundamentalism. The novel was inspired by real-life Hannah Neeleman, a Mormon influencer who abandoned her dreams of being a ballerina to start a homestead, known as Ballerina Farm, with her husband. Ballerina Farm and the larger trad wife trend of returning to traditional gender roles were scrutinized in a July 2024 profile in The Times of London, which revealed that maybe Neeleman wasn’t as free or empowered as she seemed. Tue, 28 Apr 2026 13:14:46 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/time-traveling-trad-wife-explores-free-will https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/celebrating-people-who-are-patriotic-all-right-ways IN COLLEGE, I joined other American students for a semester abroad experience in China. Because I was born there and had visited relatives before, I knew how to conduct myself waiting for a bus or train—when the door opens, rush in! But my American classmates were flummoxed. They would wait respectfully for those stepping off and then try to find some semblance of a line to follow. There was none, only the chaotic surge of the crowd. Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:47:50 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/celebrating-people-who-are-patriotic-all-right-ways https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/are-we-listening-nuns-now IN 1969, I was in second grade at St. Ignatius Catholic School. First grade was a breeze. I loved Sr. Linda. She wore a modified habit and brought a guitar to class. Second grade was more difficult. We had to prepare for my first confession and first Communion by memorizing the catechism answers. Then we were tested to prove that we understood what we were getting into (as much as a 7-year-old can grasp sin, repentance, forgiveness, and transubstantiation). Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:38:24 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/are-we-listening-nuns-now https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/how-christians-can-offer-persuasive-alternatives-war THE UNITED STATES is now engaged in another war. This time with Iran. How might we break out of this horrendous cycle of violence and what moral guidance might we offer, especially as Christians? Predictably, the resort by Israel to a violent “defense” against Gaza in 2023, supported by the U.S., has now metastasized into another major escalation in the region, with Iran, Israel, and the U.S. each claiming “legitimate defense.” In the first few weeks of lethal engagement this winter, at least 1,230 people were killed in Iran, including more than 100 children at a girls’ primary school after an illegal U.S. air strike. Deaths in Lebanon and Israel continued to rise. The war spread across at least 13 countries in the Middle East. Each destroyed home, livelihood, and life increases the bitterness, trauma, and threat. Destroying military equipment, nuclear sites, or killing key leaders does not address root causes of injustice nor the unmet needs behind perceived or real threats. Tue, 28 Apr 2026 10:20:56 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/how-christians-can-offer-persuasive-alternatives-war https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/why-we-still-shout THE PREACHER PAUSES mid-sermon. Somewhere in the middle of the sanctuary a voice rises: Amen. Another voice answers. Then another. Soon a chorus builds. Amen. Amen! Preach. The sound rolls through the sanctuary like a wave gathering strength. Hands clap rhythmically. Feet begin to tap against the old wooden floor. The preacher smiles and leans into the pulpit. The congregation has begun to preach with him. For many who worship in the Black Church, this moment is instantly recognizable. The cadence of amens, the rising energy of the room, the collective response of the congregation. These are not interruptions to the sermon. They are part of the sermon itself. Worship becomes something shared, something embodied. Faith is not only spoken. It reverberates in the body. It pounds the ears. Tue, 28 Apr 2026 10:02:47 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/why-we-still-shout https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/how-love-our-youngest-neighbors-ecd I LOVE WATCHING preschoolers from a local day care pass by, holding those ropes with handles, guided at each end by caretakers pacing their steps to match all those little legs. On most days, those brief, adorable bright spots might be the total attention I give to small people or their care. Not my kids, not my responsibility, right? But that is woefully shortsighted. A society and government that is stingy in its support of its youngest members is not good for anyone. Thu, 23 Apr 2026 11:25:11 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/how-love-our-youngest-neighbors-ecd https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/i-was-prison-and-you-flew-across-country-visit-me AS MY FAMILY and I entered the pre-visit check-in area of Pelican Bay, a supermax prison in Crescent City, Calif., three guards stood stiffly behind a long counter at the other end of the room. The guards didn’t budge. We followed their gaze to a tiny TV on the wall above what was supposed to be a “kids’ corner” (just a dingy rug and a mini kid-size table). Their eyes were locked on the movie Frozen. It was 8 a.m. I took a deep breath as I realized this was going to be a long day. We sat and waited as they watched their movie on the state’s dime. My husband, who often visits prisons as a forensic psychologist, assured our sons and me, who’d never been to a prison before, that this is just how it goes sometimes. Thu, 23 Apr 2026 10:56:03 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/i-was-prison-and-you-flew-across-country-visit-me https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/inside-grief-and-relief-leaving-denomination OF COURSE IT all started right around 2016. That year, the Christian Reformed Church in North America’s synod—an annual meeting of representatives from across regional subdivisions of the denomination in the U.S. and Canada—commissioned a document known as the Human Sexuality Report with the stated goal to “articulate a foundation-laying biblical theology of sexuality” over the course of the next five years. One hot-button issue was same-sex relationships. Up until this point, the CRC had been operating under the guidance established at the synod of 1973, which was that while same-sex attraction shouldn’t be considered sinful, acting on that attraction was. Thu, 23 Apr 2026 10:40:37 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/may-2026/inside-grief-and-relief-leaving-denomination https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/humor/slow-change-and-proud-it THE MAN ON the radio said, “Set your smart speaker to NPR.” Hah. That’ll be the day. I don’t want Jeff Bezos listening in on my home life, which I assume is how he spends his downtime, along with fantasizing about replacing human workers with robots. I might even get a smart speaker, just to taunt him. “Hey, Alexa, I’m going out shopping now. You know, buying locally. Can I pick up anything for you?” Of course, by not having one of those devices, I can’t spontaneously shout across the room, “Hey [insert name you just forgot], play some Beatles.” Thu, 26 Mar 2026 11:23:39 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/humor/slow-change-and-proud-it https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/wake-resurrection Even a resurrection doesn’t eradicate suffering. People still weep and doubt and worry and fear. Friends still have to say goodbye. There are misunderstandings and missteps. There are valleys full of shadows. There are enemies. There are needs. Life keeps on “life-ing”—a fact that shouldn’t surprise us when we remember that life is alive, not dead. Even so, in case you were tempted to believe Easter is the “happily ever after” of the Christian story, the texts in this Easter season will remind us that Easter wasn’t an ending but a beginning. There are trials yet to come. These passages aren’t only a reminder that crap will continue to happen. They are also a reminder that God is there with us in it. Thu, 26 Mar 2026 10:27:31 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/wake-resurrection https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/resurrection When you called from hospice and asked what I was doing these days, I said riding horses. Thu, 26 Mar 2026 10:17:11 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/resurrection https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/new-creation-myth-our-brutal-and-chaotic-times CREATION STORIES, WHETHER modern or ancient, share an impulse to explain the situation of those telling it. Consider the first creation story we encounter in Genesis. In six wondrously efficient days, God transforms “the complete chaos, and darkness” covering the Earth into an organized universe. The orderly creation of Genesis 1-2:4a, written during a catastrophic period in ancient Israel, is meant to reassure the Israelites that God is indeed fully in charge of the world, and all is not lost, no matter how terrible things seem. Stories of the “founding” of America by the Puritans likewise imbued the country’s early self-understanding with a supposedly divine mandate. That way of thinking continues to inform and justify the behavior of the U.S. to this day. Thu, 26 Mar 2026 10:07:12 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/new-creation-myth-our-brutal-and-chaotic-times https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/what-are-our-ancestors-saying-us WHO ARE THE ancestors shaping our lives, churches, and nations? And what are they saying to us? These are the questions Rev. William H. Lamar IV invites us to reflect on in Ancestors. Interweaving his personal story with commentary on the Bible, music, and contemporary events, Lamar brings our attention to the ancestors who journey with us. The ones who “beckon our limbs, our loves, and our very lives—sometimes for good and ... sometimes for ill.” Ancestors live on as “human energy beyond time and space,” Lamar writes. They are a spiritual presence that we can feel and hear when we take time to listen. To Lamar, ancestors aren’t just blood relatives. They can also be found in the books we read, the music we listen to, and the buildings and statues that bear their names. Thu, 26 Mar 2026 09:57:19 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/what-are-our-ancestors-saying-us https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/monks-and-deer-hunter CHAD KENNEDY WAS deer hunting near Watkinsville, Ga., one January evening when he saw police lights in the distance. He climbed down from the tree and walked toward the lights. He scared away the deer he’d been tracking, but he was afraid there had been a wreck because of all the stopped cars. Then he saw about a dozen Buddhist monks in orange and yellow robes walking swiftly along the road. Kennedy had seen these monks on TikTok, but he didn’t know they’d be coming his way. His rifle was still slung over his shoulder, so he hurried to put his gun in his truck before joining the throng of people lined up to greet them. Thu, 26 Mar 2026 09:40:15 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/monks-and-deer-hunter https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/new-and-noteworthy-afro-appalachian-music-rachel-held-evans-and-more On his grieving, folksy, Afro-Appalachian debut album Bloodline, Liberian-born singer Mon Rovîa reflects on war, violence, and staking out meaningful space for growth. Thu, 26 Mar 2026 09:27:40 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/new-and-noteworthy-afro-appalachian-music-rachel-held-evans-and-more https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/finding-church-fema-camp WHEN I READ Acts 2, I imagine that those first Christians experienced both profound beauty and aggravation. On Pentecost, disparate people came together to serve each other and bear one another’s burdens: “They would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts” (verses 45-46). It’s a beautiful portrait, and yet anyone who has lived in intentional community knows that such tight-knit bonds can be as draining as they are rewarding; sharing meals in large groups is fun, until it’s time to do the dishes. Thu, 26 Mar 2026 09:06:19 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/finding-church-fema-camp https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/manga-jolly-roger-became-global-protest-symbol AS ANTI-GOVERNMENT protests in 2025 erupted in Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Morocco, Madagascar, France, and the U.S., observers and journalists noticed demonstrators flying an unusual flag. The “Jolly Roger”—a white skull and crossbones on a black field—wearing a distinctive yellow hat was instantly recognizable to fans of Japanese anime culture. This flag belongs to the fictional Straw Hat Pirates from One Piece, a Japanese manga by Eiichiro Oda. This particular shonen (“youth”) graphic novel series has become a global symbol of revolution, resistance, and hope against government oppression and corruption among young protesters. First published in 1997, One Piece, with more than 500 million copies sold, is the most popular manga in the world. It has spun off more than 1,100 animated episodes and a live-action Netflix adaptation and continues—three decades on—to run in Shonen Jump, Japan’s influential weekly manga anthology. Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:39:52 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/manga-jolly-roger-became-global-protest-symbol https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/i-wont-let-resentment-determine-who-i-become IN APRIL 1994, Nelson Mandela was elected as the first Black president of South Africa in the country’s first multiracial election. Before becoming president, Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years for his role in the African National Congress’ fight against apartheid. Mandela’s life was reminiscent of the biblical story of Joseph; it was a story of someone ascending from the prison to the palace, or in Mandela’s case, from Robben Island to Pretoria. Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:25:46 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/i-wont-let-resentment-determine-who-i-become https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/yes-there-are-wind-farms-china I THINK IT’S important to finally drive a stake through what may be the most resilient—and incorrect and damaging—right-wing talking point on climate and energy. Which is, to paraphrase literally hundreds of congresspeople, cabinet secretaries, and spin doctors: “Why should America bother to cut its global warming emissions? China will simply build more coal plants and fill the air anyway.” Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:20:51 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/yes-there-are-wind-farms-china https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/her-bishop-apologized-she-wants-accountability-coerced-adoptions FRANCINE GURTLER SAT before the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in December 2025, unsure of what he would say. For more than three years, Gurtler has called for the denomination to investigate its role in forcing women in church-operated or -supported maternity homes to relinquish their children for adoption. In 1971, Gurtler was living in St. Faith’s Home for Unwed Mothers, operated within the New York diocese of the Episcopal Church, when she was coerced into giving up her newborn son. “I was not given a choice,” she said. Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:10:19 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/her-bishop-apologized-she-wants-accountability-coerced-adoptions https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/our-digital-divide-growing-what-can-churches-do REP. JOHN LEWIS, in a 2012 conversation with a Comcast executive, said, “Access to the internet … is the civil rights issue of the 21st century.” That year, artificial intelligence was mainly confined to university research. Today, though still unprofitable, AI is embedded in all our internet systems. Wed, 25 Mar 2026 11:49:53 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/our-digital-divide-growing-what-can-churches-do https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/lynchburg-more-liberty-u NESTLED IN THE foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the city of Lynchburg, Va., is best known as the home of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. As the city’s largest employer, Liberty wields extensive influence: Its campus is home to more than 16,000 in-person students in a city of around 80,000. (Liberty’s online programs bring its total enrollment up to a staggering 140,000 students, making the fundamentalist Christian school one of the country’s largest institutions of higher education.) Christian televangelist and Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell Sr., born in Lynchburg, launched the Lynchburg Christian Academy in 1967 as a segregation academy, followed by an early version of Liberty University in 1971. Falwell’s organizations and television presence formed generations of Christians through fundamentalist values and political organizing. After Falwell died in 2007, his son and successor Jerry Falwell Jr. sought to expand Liberty’s political influence. Falwell Jr.’s personal endorsement of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign helped swing the evangelical electorate; in the lead-up to the 2024 election, Liberty University was listed on the Project 2025 advisory board. For more than 50 years, Liberty has solidified its place as a powerful culture shaper, and Lynchburg has become the geographic epicenter of a major branch of white conservative evangelicalism in the United States. Wed, 25 Mar 2026 10:04:13 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/lynchburg-more-liberty-u