https://sojo.net/feeds/articles Sojourners Magazine Articles en 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 https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/why-did-tower-babel-make-god-mad I AM OJIBWE ANISHINAABE through my father and German Ukrainian through my mother. I live in what is currently known as the Niagara Region of Canada—a homeland for neither of my peoples, but home to Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg, who would be cousins to the Ojibwe. We are bush Indians, at home in the forests and wetlands of the northwest. They are the people of the big river mouths and are at home in these more southern places. Of course, north and south are contextual and depend on where you are reading from. Indigenous writers are prone to identify the places from which we live and write and our connections backward in time and to each other. These things provide context to our words and help you understand how to read them. Readers ought to do this as well. Think about where you are reading from, your own placement in time and geography. How did you get to this place, wherever this place is, that you are reading this magazine and this article? Who lived here before you, and who are the newcomers to it? Wed, 25 Mar 2026 08:53:33 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/why-did-tower-babel-make-god-mad https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/alberto-castaneda-mondragon-did-not-fracture-his-own-skull ON JAN. 8, Alberto Castañeda Mondragón was taken to an emergency room in Edina, Minn., with head injuries. It was a few hours after he’d been stopped and detained by Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents. He was then transferred to the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. According to the Associated Press, “The officers told nurses Castañeda Mondragón ‘purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall.’” But AP consulted with a doctor who confirmed that his injuries—including eight skull fractures on the front, back, and both sides of his head and five brain hemorrhages—were inconsistent with walls or falls. Castañeda Mondragón recalled “ICE officers striking him with the same metal rod used to break the windows of the vehicle he was in.” Tue, 24 Mar 2026 16:43:58 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/alberto-castaneda-mondragon-did-not-fracture-his-own-skull https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/editors-very-sojourners-easter The Great Vigil of Easter in many Christian traditions is the pinnacle of the worship year. Held between sunset on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter, it heralds the return of Christ’s light to those living in the shadows. Christians sing the ancient Exsultet on that night only; Sojourners asked Latin teacher Kate Seat to provide a fresh translation of a portion of that prayer (with its delightful praise of “the mother bee”). Tue, 24 Mar 2026 16:06:56 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/april-2026/editors-very-sojourners-easter https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/humor/lenten-loopholes DID YOU KNOW you can win Lent? I’ve been working on winning Lent since my upper-elementary days in Catholic Confraternity of Christian Doctrine classes at St. Andrew by the Bay. Since then, I have made annual declarations on or around Ash Wednesday about what I am giving up for Lent. As a young person, I would summon as much gravitas as I could muster in my preteen voice and proclaim, with a Dr Pepper in hand, “This year, I’m giving up sugar!” or “This year, I’m giving up MTV.” Fri, 06 Feb 2026 15:02:18 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/humor/lenten-loopholes https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/god-holds-our-wobbly-faith IF YOU ASKED ME how strong my faith feels, especially these days, I might tell you that I feel as strong as the leaves and twigs of a tree in a windstorm. But if you asked me what I’m connected to, I might tell you that my tiny twigs of faith are tied to a pretty solid trunk of community rooted in rich soil. I’m sorely tempted, every day, to live in my leaf energy and cry. To “twig out” in terror. But I’m trying to remember that this faith thing is not a solitary endeavor, that because of you we have a trunk, that because of our ancestors we have roots. I’m trying to remember that even when the storm rages on, it will take a lot more than high wind to knock us flat. Fri, 06 Feb 2026 14:36:08 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/god-holds-our-wobbly-faith https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/reminders-after-survival Fri, 06 Feb 2026 14:06:42 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/reminders-after-survival https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/fable-climate-crisis LITERATURE IS PEPPERED with powerful men who, after lives of dangerous consequence on Earth, grapple with the eternal judgment of heaven. Dante filled his inferno with the writhing wrongdoers of his day. Dickens gave us Ebenezer Scrooge, whose festive ghosts spooked him into more socialistic thinking. And who can forget the time when President Donald Trump himself publicly mused that he might not make it to heaven, after all? Literature and, every once in a rare while, life. In his crackling new novel, Vigil, George Saunders offers another such fable for the climate crisis. Unrepentant on his death bed, oil tycoon K.J. Boone receives visitors from the past, present, and future who hope to hold him to account for his sins. Species of birds wiped out by habitat loss fly over his hospice setup; human casualties of heat waves and droughts testify. Bearing witness to the barrage is Jill, a ghost-angel charged with comforting Boone as he crosses over. Fri, 06 Feb 2026 13:46:53 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/fable-climate-crisis https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/famished-explores-link-between-purity-culture-and-diet-culture IN THE EARLY 2000s, Christian women were flooded with commentary about female bodies, both from secular and religious camps. A societal fixation on weight filled tabloid and magazine covers in grocery stores. Pastors preached against premarital sex by comparing teenage bodies to dirty water. “So many sermon illustrations compared my body to food waiting to be consumed by men,” writes Anna Rollins in her new memoir, Famished. Rollins, who grew up in a white Appalachian fundamentalist Christian community, situates cultures of diet and sexual purity on the same continuum. Fri, 06 Feb 2026 13:29:45 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/famished-explores-link-between-purity-culture-and-diet-culture https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/if-these-eyes-could-speak ON A HILL in occupied East Jerusalem, there’s a large mural of brown-green eyes: They are the eyes of the blind man who consented to be healed by Jesus at the Pool of Siloam, known by many locals today as Silwan pool. Silwan is a Palestinian village just outside the Old City. Painted by Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour, the eyes gaze at the pool where the biblical figure gained sight, now surrounded by soldiers with guns. He gazes at the rubble of demolished homes, surveillance cameras, children walking to school. Do you see? I felt this biblical ancestor asking me, the question hanging ripe in the tangled-wire air. Do you see? Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:06:38 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/if-these-eyes-could-speak https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/new-and-noteworthy-vanishing-church-lore-segal-and-more Resistance and Reverence The State of Belief podcast aims to deliver “a potent mix of spiritual wisdom, political strategy, and hopeful commentary.” Weekly, Paul Brandeis Raushenbush talks with faith leaders and activists about topics ranging from book bans to religious liberty to nonviolent resistance. Interfaith Alliance Tue, 03 Feb 2026 13:48:13 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/new-and-noteworthy-vanishing-church-lore-segal-and-more https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/retrospective-look-martin-scorseses-silence WHEN MARTIN SCORSESE’S Silence was released in 2016, many reviewers invoked the “L” word: legacy, a capstone for a lauded director with nearly five decades of films under his belt. But looking back, Silence is less like a summation and more like a fresh exploration of the themes that had always fascinated the director. Scorsese, who based the film on the 1966 novel by Shūsaku Endō, spent more than 25 years laboring over its script and production. Two Portuguese Jesuit priests, Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver), journey into fog-shrouded Japan to find their former mentor, who seems to have abdicated his evangelizing responsibilities under fear of persecution and death. To restore his name and maintain their own faith, the two venture into a country where the government offers large cash rewards for exposing hidden priests. Tue, 03 Feb 2026 13:27:17 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/retrospective-look-martin-scorseses-silence https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/i-went-cleo-sol-concert-it-felt-church CLEO SOL STANDS center stage at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. It’s March 2025. Her flowing red ball gown doesn’t detract from her grounding presence. Her forehead glistens under the warm beams. My arms are outstretched and tears stream down my face. The room swells as Sol and her backing vocalists sing these words in the song “Build Me Up”: “Am I invisible? / I’m not invincible” After the show, I see three young Black people holding hands in a circle. “We’ve gone to church, y’all,” one says, the other two friends guffawing while slapping her shoulders. That’s how it felt, a mass witnessing of divine intervention. Sol and I were both born in London, yet there we were, thousands of miles across the Atlantic, sharing space with a community whose history is not our own. Her music made strangers kin, and it made me, a Black British woman, feel at home not through place, but through sound. That spiritual high faded soon after I left the venue. An unhoused Black man was sleeping on a bench in the subway carriage, untroubled by the shakes and screeches as the train descended into Brooklyn. We passengers were also unperturbed, giving him at most a quick glance before staring at our phones. Tue, 03 Feb 2026 12:59:12 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/i-went-cleo-sol-concert-it-felt-church https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/power-chanting-stomping-and-wailing BY THE TIME this article is published, it’s likely my mom will be gone. She’s dying of end-stage stomach cancer. Since she moved in with us last summer, I have been in the throes of “panini generation” caregiving, made worse by my severe cases of eldest-daughter syndrome and immigrant-child obligation. Though I want to report that these final months with my mom have been full of tender moments and deep connection, more often than not I’ve felt pushed to my limits in the face of suffering that I can’t control. Many readers can probably relate. Hour by hour, we watch slow-moving tragedies unfold around us—some personal, some public and colossal. Tue, 03 Feb 2026 12:32:18 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/power-chanting-stomping-and-wailing https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/what-does-one-see-cross THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS is a devotion practiced by Jesus followers since earliest memory. Based on scripture and sacred tradition, the stations invite believers to walk in the footsteps of Jesus through his final hours, from sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane to laying his lifeless body in a temporary tomb. Even in present-day Jerusalem, believers walk the Via Dolorosa. It is one of the most sacred pilgrimages for Christians. My earliest memories of Lent include a candle-lit church smelling of beeswax and incense, with the murmur of prayers before each image of the stations. Heartrending questions prick my conscience and point me along the way: Have I stayed awake with you, Lord? When did I see you thirsty, Lord? Have I allowed you to find me when I fall? For many years, it was my father’s voice that split the silence of the Good Friday service. He read from Anthony T. Padovano’s Dawn Without Darkness, which posed the question: “What does one see from a cross?” Tue, 03 Feb 2026 12:14:35 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/what-does-one-see-cross https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/can-we-trade-our-social-media-wars-something-better IN A 2025 general audience, Pope Leo XIV drew listeners’ attention to the “cry of pain rising from places devastated by war, especially Ukraine, Iran, Israel and Gaza.” He warned that “we must never get used to war.” He was identifying a condition already visible on social media, where footage of Russian drones bombing Ukraine and ICE agents raiding neighborhoods in Chicago and Minneapolis is nestled neatly between cat videos and cooking clips as just another type of consumable digital content. These incidents of violence once represented distinct breaks with the ordinary—moments when civic trust collapsed into the mire of conflict. Now, they are part of the endless stream of videos sifted, reacted to, reframed, and absorbed by a political and media apparatus primed for soliciting dramatic responses. Tue, 03 Feb 2026 11:51:01 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/can-we-trade-our-social-media-wars-something-better https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/what-trumps-ego-means-our-witness WHEN DONALD TRUMP sat down in the Oval Office with four reporters from The New York Times for two hours in January, he was asked if there were any restraints on his global actions. “Yeah, there is one thing,” the president replied. “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” That unvarnished truth came as many were wondering what was signaled by Trump’s military operation in Venezuela to extract President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and what to expect next. The answer? It was a prototype, and we should expect more. Tue, 03 Feb 2026 10:45:45 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/what-trumps-ego-means-our-witness https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/imago-dei-vs-american-bigotry AS THE UNITED STATES celebrates its 250th birthday this year, I am thinking about who is included in the “We the people” of the Constitution’s preamble. This is particularly urgent in light of the MAGA movement, the largest effort in over a generation to redefine who and what is truly American. Since its inception our nation has been in a tug of war between those seeking to narrow “We the people” to primarily white men and those seeking to expand it to include every person. Sadly, white evangelical Christians remain more fearful and resistant to the nation’s changing demographics compared to all other religious groups, as recent surveys from both Pew and PRRI have shown. Rather than a source of hope and a glimpse of the kingdom to come, our increasing diversity has been used to build political power by stoking anxiety and prejudice. Tue, 03 Feb 2026 10:29:19 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/imago-dei-vs-american-bigotry https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/editors-melting-ice THIS ISSUE GOES to print as the Trump administration wages a massive, deadly attack on Minnesotans under the guise of immigration enforcement. People on the full spectrum of citizenship status, including children, have been violently taken from streets, homes, and businesses. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have killed two nonviolent observers. Countless other observers and protestors have been assaulted, tear-gassed, and arrested, including many clergy. Across the country, including Minnesota, people are resisting brutal government overreach by organizing food, rides, protection, and public advocacy. We walk in prayer and solidarity with them. Thu, 29 Jan 2026 16:36:21 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/editors-melting-ice https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/new-book-smashes-idols-economic-growth MAYBE YOU’VE NOTICED the pattern: Since 1995, the United Nations has called world leaders together every year to participate in a Conference of Parties, or COP, on climate change. Politicians and negotiators are tasked with discussing progress and commitments—or lack thereof. So far so good, right? But year after year, governments fail to show up with enough ambition to meet even their own targets—targets that already fall short of what social movements and scientists demand. Faced with an existential threat to human and other life on earth, our leaders meet annually and agree to back away from their promises, pushing the planet further into a situation of more flash floods and drawn-out droughts, more wildfire smoke and rising shorelines, a world less fit for life in all its variety. In 2025, COP30 marked 10 years since the signing of the Paris Agreement, where 196 countries committed to limit global warming to 1.5°C higher than preindustrial temperatures. In the summer leading up to COP30, a document began to circulate: “The science is clear: we must limit global warming to 1.5°C to avoid catastrophic effects. We must never abandon this goal,” the document says. “It is the Global South and future generations who are already suffering the consequences. We reject false solutions such as ‘green’ capitalism, technocracy, the commodification of nature, and extractivism, which perpetuate exploitation and injustice.” Instead, the authors call for transformational, structural change, the kind of courage that never makes it to COP meetings. The document reads like an impassioned call from a revolutionary climate movement, criticizing even the green economy for emerging “not as a break with capitalism, but as an incremental modernisation of capitalism, expanding its capacity for self-regulation while perpetuating systemic contradictions.” Yet the document did not come from the Extinction Rebellion, a socialist group, a left-wing think tank, or a handful of anarchists. It came from the Catholic bishops of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, who issued it together as “the message of the Catholic Church in the Global South.” Thu, 29 Jan 2026 12:12:49 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/new-book-smashes-idols-economic-growth https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/how-fascism-became-religion DURING ONE MEMORABLE scene in Mussolini: Son of the Century, a critically acclaimed series about the rise of Benito Mussolini currently streaming on MUBI and Apple TV, the fascist leader finds his wife, Rachele, in a church, praying for the recovery of their sick child. An avowed, outspoken atheist, Mussolini tells her to direct her pleas to the doctors treating him instead. When ignored, he looks up at the ceiling and asks God to prove God’s existence by smiting him—a request which, to Mussolini’s self-satisfaction, goes similarly unanswered. Outside, the couple is greeted by a crowd shouting “Duce,” or leader. Bathing in the public’s adoration, Mussolini spreads his arms, his pose mirroring the cross atop the church behind him. Mussolini’s desire to rival and replace Christianity is not a fabrication or exaggeration on the part of the TV series, directed by filmmaker Joe Wright and based on a well-researched historical novel of a similar name by Italian author Antonio Scurati. Fascist leaders frequently compared their movement to the Catholic Church, describing themselves as prophets and saints while referring to their followers as believers and worshippers. In a way, the party apparatus didn’t just look or sound like religion; it was a religion, custom-made for an age when Christianity was rapidly giving way to atheism. Although Mussolini’s 20-year reign came to a brutal end during World War II, when he and his mistress were executed in front of a similarly jubilant crowd, his legacy has survived. To this day, this early fascism serves as a blueprint for conservative and neo-fascist movements across the world, from the United States to Italy itself. Looking at what happened when Mussolini rose to power more than a century ago will help us understand what’s happening today. Wed, 28 Jan 2026 13:15:08 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2026/how-fascism-became-religion https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/humor/larry-cucumber-should-headline-tpusas-halftime-show FOR MONTHS, I’VE tried to understand the outrage over the selection of rapper Bad Bunny as headliner of the Super Bowl LX halftime show. What’s not to like about the Puerto Rican reggaeton star? He’s won three Grammys, boosted Puerto Rico’s economy by at least $400 million with his concert residency, and through his “Good Bunny” foundation annually delivers thousands of Christmas gifts to Puerto Rican children—even though it would be far more on-brand for him to deliver Easter baskets. Still, after the announcement, conservatives across the country revolted (sent out angry tweets on X, which somehow still exists). They wanted a Christian, American halftime show, not a secular, Puerto Rican halftime show! Soon they learned that every Puerto Rican is a U.S. citizen and that by nearly every metric of religiosity, Puerto Rico ranks as the most Christian jurisdiction of the United States. These facts didn’t assuage their anger. Tue, 09 Dec 2025 10:01:51 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/humor/larry-cucumber-should-headline-tpusas-halftime-show https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/watch-morning-star I’M GOING TO be real with you. I experienced a good bit of religious trauma in my ultra-evangelical, fundamentalist upbringing, and I’ve spent decades healing. What has shocked me, though, is the harm I have experienced and witnessed inside progressive faith circles—places where, in theory, we shared theology and values. It turns out people of any persuasion can fall prey to the temptation of superficiality rather than depth, performance rather than sincerity. It was a rude wake-up call, but hopefully the kind of disillusionment that keeps a gal genuine. February’s texts draw us into humble evaluation of where we are and challenge us to a depth of commitment that can’t be faked or flaunted or rushed. Imagine you’re driving somewhere in a big hurry when (with the worst luck!) you’re forced to stop for a passing train. You impatiently tap on the steering wheel until you look up and notice that each passing boxcar is painted with a word. “Take. A. Breath,” say the train cars, “Go. Ahead. You. Have. Time. The. Lesson. Is. Now. Not. At. Your. Destination. Now.” So, you take a deep breath. And then another. Because what else are you going to do? The train is no longer wasting your time. It’s become your teacher. My prayer is that these reflections function like those imaginary train cars, slowing you down just when you were running on urgency. Mon, 08 Dec 2025 16:38:44 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/watch-morning-star https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/waiting-world-change THE SEASON OF Advent is over, but the season of our waiting is not. There is still so much we long to see brought to fruition. Every morning’s news confirms the ache. We are pining for so much to be made right in a world that has gone so wrong. Christmas may have marked the end of Advent, but the liturgical year has only just begun. In other words, Christ has been born, but there is still a lot of story to be played out. What a great reminder as we head into yet another year that looks bleak at the outset: This story we are living in isn’t done yet. There is more to come, and some of it is very good news. Just as it will take time for the Christ child to grow into the savior the world needs him to be, in every era of human history, the growth of justice takes time. Recognizing the slow pace at which the kin-dom of God unfolds does not mean we lie down on our backs and abdicate responsibility, but it does mean we have hope as we both labor and rest. No matter how dismal it may look out there, justice is on its way. January’s readings take us into conversation with texts aching for justice and longing for homecoming, helping us sense when to listen and when to speak, when to hold still and when to move. We are encouraged to be tender with each other as we wait, to hold on tight to hope, and when the moment calls, to act with conviction. Mon, 08 Dec 2025 15:54:51 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/waiting-world-change https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/trudge-kings A bitter trudge under star-faces. The Pleiades mocking in their blueness. The balance of Heaven swallowed whole By the shocking bloom of the new light bursting. Mon, 08 Dec 2025 15:39:51 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/trudge-kings https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/hell-mirror IN HER NEWEST novel, Katabasis, R. F. Kuang straps the mythic baggage of Dante and Orpheus onto two graduate students, Alice Law and Peter Murdoch. After accidentally killing their tyrannical professor, Grimes, the two sneak into hell to resurrect him. What they find there is barely distinguishable from their graduate studies. Kuang’s underworld is no cartoon inferno; it is a chilling landscape of extreme isolation, where the circles of punishment are the final expressions of the sins that isolate us in life. The world of Katabasis (meaning “journey to the underworld”) is nearly identical to our own, save that magic is real. It has been institutionalized and is studied at the world’s premier universities. Grimes rules the Magick school at Cambridge with an iron fist, his abusive behavior excused as a function of his genius (and the price graduate students must pay for success). Alice and Peter are Grimes’ current star students, but this makes them more subject to his tyranny, not less. Alice “was of course underpaid and overworked, but this condition was common among graduate students and no one cared much about it,” Kuang writes. Neither Alice nor Peter (“the nicest guy in the world … who always holds you firm at arm’s length”) can see their suffering for what it is: a deluded isolation so complete that even hell seems preferable. Mon, 08 Dec 2025 15:31:45 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/hell-mirror https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/gods-extraordinary-ordinariness BEFORE WRITING HER book of reflections on Ordinary Time, Amy Peeler said she “dreaded” this liturgical season. “[As someone] fed by excitement and change, this season seemed to offer little of either,” she writes. Fortunately, instead of asking Peeler to write about Advent or Lent for IVP’s Fullness of Time book series, editor Esau McCaulley assigned Peeler the longest, most often overlooked liturgical season. I didn’t grow up in a church that utilized liturgy beyond the occasional recitation of the Apostles’ Creed, so perhaps I fit squarely in IVP’s target demographic for the series. “Christians of all traditions are finding a renewed appreciation for the church year,” McCaulley writes in the series preface. The goal of these books, he continues, is to teach Christians “how the church is forming them in the likeness of Christ through the church calendar.” Mon, 08 Dec 2025 15:24:32 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/gods-extraordinary-ordinariness https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/when-deeply-religious-burn-books THOUGH OTHER COUNTRIES have banned books, enforced strict censorship, and created structural barriers to education, the U.S. has a unique history of anti-literacy laws targeting Black people. During the years leading up to the Civil War, several states enacted harsh laws making it illegal for African American people, whether enslaved or free, to learn to read, to write, or to own books. These reactionary laws were rooted in a fear that literacy—especially the ability to read the Bible—would lead to violent revolt. Layle Lane was a 20th-century educator, activist, and community organizer and a close friend of my paternal grandmother. Lane’s father, Rev. Calvin Lane, a Congregationalist minister who died in 1939, wrote about his family’s struggles and triumphs in their pursuit of literacy; his account is stored in the Howard University Layle Lane collection. Mon, 08 Dec 2025 15:15:37 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/when-deeply-religious-burn-books https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/new-and-noteworthy-reading-bible-turtle-island-resisting-imperialism Teachers’ Mounting Pressure The tight, gritty drama Steve offers an intimate look at a last-chance reform school in the 1990s. As determined head teacher Steve (Cillian Murphy) slowly unravels, we are reminded that we can’t take care of others until we take care of ourselves. Netflix Mon, 08 Dec 2025 14:32:10 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/new-and-noteworthy-reading-bible-turtle-island-resisting-imperialism https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/watch-1987-film-during-epiphany EARLY JANUARY MARKS the start of the season of Epiphany, during which Christians recognize the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Scriptures point to the disruptive nature of Christ’s messiahship: Jesus asks John to baptize him (Matthew 3:13-17), an act that surprises John, who believes he’s unfit to baptize the son of God. Then Jesus delivers his first miracle when he turns water not just into wine, but the best wine, upsetting the tradition of serving good wine first, and cheap wine later (John 2:1-12). Both acts signal that Jesus’ ministry won’t be what people expect. Rules will be challenged. Abundance, not scarcity, will reign. These stories remind us to seek the living God in unexpected forms. Mon, 08 Dec 2025 12:52:05 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/watch-1987-film-during-epiphany https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/three-liberating-new-musicals EARLY IN THE musical Saturday Church, the endearing teenage protagonist Ulysses prays to God. His father has died, his mother is always working, and his church community keeps pushing him to be less effeminate. “I’m in here, a prisoner of all my thoughts,” Ulysses sings. “Can anybody help?” Onto the stage—wearing a long wig, a shimmering dress, and knee-length boots—steps “Black Jesus.” “Are there any queens in the house?” they sing to the room, before proceeding to do a dance number in the style of queer Black and Latino ball culture. “I come in many forms,” they tell Ulysses. “But this is my favorite.” Black Jesus is one of several biblically inspired characters and events to have recently debuted in new musicals in New York. And while their plots vary widely, each has mined the Bible in ways that offer fresh resources for the Christian imagination. Mon, 08 Dec 2025 12:29:06 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/three-liberating-new-musicals https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/bad-bunnys-holy-halftime PUERTO RICAN MUSIC star Bad Bunny had quite the run this past year. In September, he was announced as the headliner of the Super Bowl LX halftime show. In October, Billboard recognized him as the top Latin artist of the 21st century. All of this was on the heels of his 31-concert residency on the island of Puerto Rico. The residency infused close to $400 million into the Puerto Rican economy, centering, and, for many, revealing the music and culture of Puerto Rico. The act of revealing the beauty of humanity and culture is very much tied to the Christian season of Epiphany. Many Christians consider this season to mark the revelation of God enfleshed, encultured, and embedded in time and place. God chose to participate in human life in a little-known territory occupied by the Roman Empire. In choosing the obscure village of Nazareth, the Divine presence signified that Love, in the world, begins at the margins. Mon, 08 Dec 2025 11:47:25 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/bad-bunnys-holy-halftime https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/hymn-praise-e-bikes THERE ARE A few things that seem like magic to me. One is ice—when water freezes, suddenly you can glide across the surface of the earth. The fastest I’ve ever gone on my own unmodified power was on a pair of speed skates across a newly frozen lake. I didn’t even realize how fast I was flying till I fell and slid for what seemed like half a mile. Mon, 08 Dec 2025 11:28:32 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/hymn-praise-e-bikes https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/trumps-murderous-caribbean-campaign-worse-war IT IS A fundamental concept of justice that someone suspected of a crime should receive due process: Knowledge of their alleged offense. The ability to plead their case. A fair trial. Yet on Sept. 2, the U.S. military launched a lethal drone strike on a boat traveling through the Caribbean Sea. All 11 people on board were killed. No charge, no trial. Just execution. Since then, we’ve seen an escalating U.S. military campaign that has killed dozens of individuals from countries such as Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela. The Trump administration alleges that the individuals are smuggling drugs, but since there was no due process, we don’t know. These strikes are leaving mothers without their sons and creating widows and orphans in their wake. The New York Times reported that “Chad Joseph, a 26-year-old from Trinidad and Tobago who had been living in Venezuela in recent months, told his family he would soon be taking a short boat ride back home.” He never arrived. The wife of another victim said that her husband, a fisherman, had “gone to work one day and had never returned.” Mon, 08 Dec 2025 10:43:04 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/trumps-murderous-caribbean-campaign-worse-war https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/what-history-social-gospel-can-teach-us-today THE CHURCH ADULT education class was stuck. After five weeks of exploring the immigration crisis with legal and advocacy organizations, they invited me to help them discern where and how to act. But they were foundering. A subset of the group had been working with the congregation on immigration issues for many months. “Why haven’t the changes we pushed for come to fruition?” they asked me. “How can we make a difference?” Congregations are often unclear on how they can act effectively in public during our dangerous and unpredictable times. In my teaching and practice of congregation-based community organizing, I’ve learned that one reason for this is because the issues dictate the strategy. Too often, faith leaders present the crisis around a particular justice issue as more pressing than the sacred values we hold and that motivate our faithful action. Thu, 04 Dec 2025 16:25:40 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/what-history-social-gospel-can-teach-us-today https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/beholding-gods-glory-during-inglorious-times IN A 2024 interview, priest, preacher, and author Fleming Rutledge noted that “Epiphany directs us to behold—that’s a revelatory biblical word, behold—the glory of God in Christ as he moves through his time on earth with us through his death into his ultimate victory.” I think of myself as a fairly orthodox Christian, embracing Jesus as fully God and fully human; I am a believer in angels and miracles and the resurrection. But I don’t know that I grasp all aspects of beholding the glory of God. Don’t get me wrong—an infinite deity is a wonder to me, and I believe in God still and always, despite all that can feel God-forsaken in this life, from massacres to preening, vengeful leaders. Thu, 04 Dec 2025 16:06:46 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/beholding-gods-glory-during-inglorious-times https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/editors-heaven-talk-and-nuclear-disarmament SOME OF US at Sojourners remember the existential angst of life during the nuclear arms race of the 1980s. If you were of a certain church tradition, you might have had an internal debate about what would get you first—the rapture or nuclear holocaust. And you might have been among the millions of people who worked for nuclear disarmament, a movement that helped drastically dial back the number and acceptability of nuclear weapons. Thu, 04 Dec 2025 15:53:59 EST Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/januaryfebruary-2026/editors-heaven-talk-and-nuclear-disarmament