https://sojo.net/feeds/articles Sojourners Magazine Articles en https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/editors-fact-checking-woes-and-wins Every Sojourners magazine is fact-checked. One of the last “facts” in this issue refers to Smokey Bear. But isn’t it Smokey the Bear? Nope. We checked. Tue, 25 Aug 2026 17:43:34 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/editors-fact-checking-woes-and-wins https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/new-noteworthy-christian-womanhood-revolution-and-more Everybody Wants a Revolution How can faith inform, for instance, our relationship to fossil fuels, to anarchism, and to wealth acquisition? Mon, 24 Aug 2026 13:37:58 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/new-noteworthy-christian-womanhood-revolution-and-more https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/humor/haunted-heat BUTT-HEAD. That was my costume the last time I went trick or treating. It was 1995, and one of my friends, sporting a homemade blue Metallica shirt, went as Beavis. For hours that night, I walked the streets of an Annapolis, Md., suburb saying, “Uh, huh, huh, like, trick or treat and stuff” to bemused neighbors as we wound our way through a sea of Woodys, Buzz Lightyears, and Carmen Sandiegos. Mon, 24 Aug 2026 11:36:13 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/humor/haunted-heat https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/upside-down-kin-dom SOME TRADITIONAL INTERPRETATIONS of parables that I grew up with leave me wanting. In particular, I can’t abide a God who is depicted as a vengeful king or a landowner with slaves—and I don’t think I’m wrong to feel uncomfortable here. What if the problem is not with the parables themselves, but with the way we have historically read them? Perhaps some of Jesus’ parables are less allegory and more Grapes of Wrath exposé. Perhaps by exposing the brokenness of systems, Jesus is suggesting this: The kingdom—kin-dom—of God is not a mere improvement on the systems we serve today but a full reversal. (The systems should serve humanity, not the other way around!) God’s vision is fundamentally relational and always concerned with the well-being of the most vulnerable. Imagine it. What if kings were more like gardeners than landlords and cities were true refuges and parties were for everyone? Reading the Bible faithfully has economic, physical, and political ramifications that ought not be reduced to a meaning that is “spiritual” only. This month’s scripture texts invite us to contemplate how radical it really is to love your neighbor. It can be uncomfortable to reread some of these texts through a liberation lens, but I believe it is the kind of discomfort that leads to transformation. Let’s explore these texts with fresh eyes, open minds, and receptive hearts, willing to hold the discomfort and willing to be reshaped by the word of God. Mon, 24 Aug 2026 11:17:12 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/upside-down-kin-dom https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/beautiful-messy-human-forgiveness FORGIVENESS CAN BE a profoundly beautiful act. And I never talk about it without offering some critical disclaimers because I know all too often forgiveness has been misused to keep victims and survivors silent and oppressed. Forgiveness is not about allowing abuse or mistreatment to continue. It is not about excusing bad behavior or insisting that you remain in relationship with the systems or person harming you. Forgiveness is fundamentally about liberation—liberation of self, and when appropriate, liberation of the repentant party. These passages engage the theme of forgiveness, and I encourage every preacher to handle these texts with care using a lens of liberation. Preach in such a way that you are never sending a victim back to her abuser. Preach in a way that sets the people free. Make forgiveness the thing of beauty it is capable of being, not another trap for the downtrodden. How? Perhaps by letting the texts be as complex as our actual human lives—full of nuance and heartache, consequence and hope. Our job is not to resolve the tension but to carry it well. Yes, Joseph forgives his brothers. But he messes with them a bit first. It’s not that black and white, and neither are our lives. Yes, Jesus surrenders himself to death, and it’s brave, noble, and profound. He also rises from the dead and seems to know he would. He wasn’t surrendering to his enemies so much as entrusting himself to a God who could bring resurrection from death. That distinction matters. Forgiveness can be beautiful, but it is rarely simple. Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:58:06 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/beautiful-messy-human-forgiveness https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/god-inhaling-tear-gas God is inhaling tear gas on the street where mothers kneel, with milk and citrus-soaked bandanas and trembling palms raised. Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:40:34 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/god-inhaling-tear-gas https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/we-can-find-meaning-pain-without-resorting-platitudes AS SOMEONE WHO has experienced life-altering, faith-shaking physical pain, when I see a book with a subtitle like The Body, Pain, and Faith, I find myself automatically asking: Can I trust this author? Do they speak of pain from personal experience or as a mere intellectual exercise? Five-time novelist Darcey Steinke answers this question right away. In the foreword to her new nonfiction book This Is the Door, Steinke details her experience of several months of back pain so intense that it caused her to “walk a tight-rope between raging against [her] pain and trying to search for any scraps of meaning that might be left in its wreckage.” Those of us who have endured pain like this can likely relate. As the book continues, Steinke explores her own pain, the pains of her family members, the pains of various historical artists and thinkers, and the pains of people she interviewed who suffer in different ways. Is there meaning to be found? Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:31:45 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/we-can-find-meaning-pain-without-resorting-platitudes https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/reimagining-wife-proverbs-31 “TO THE SO-CALLED whores and their daughters! May we inherit the earth and enjoy an endless fount of wine to forget our troubles,” says First Lady Scharisse Freeman as she concludes a subversive monologue reimagining Proverbs 31, the biblical passage often invoked as a model of ideal Christian womanhood. With this opening scene, Deesha Philyaw sets the tone for her riveting, satirical novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman. The story then goes back in time to show the events that led to the rousing speech. We follow Freeman, the wife of a megachurch pastor who is 15 years her senior, as she prepares for the First Lady USA pageant and deals with the fallout from a scandal that threatens her marriage, her family, and their megachurch. Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:28:42 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/reimagining-wife-proverbs-31 https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/why-hollywood-fixated-nuns WITHIN A YEAR, two blockbuster films have featured fugitives who seek refuge in a surprising place: a convent of religious women. In Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, the daughter of a revolutionary hides out with the fictional Sisters of the Brave Beaver. In Stephen Speilberg’s sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day, a government whistleblower carrying stolen information about alien life takes shelter at the monastery of St. Clare of the Dawn. Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:18:26 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/why-hollywood-fixated-nuns https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/real-monsters-leviticus IN A VERSE that has spurred debate and inflicted pain, Leviticus 20:13 reads: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their bloodguilt is upon them.” The scripture also provides the inspiration for Adrian Chiarella’s Leviticus, a new film in which repressed queer desire becomes, quite literally, monstrous. Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:07:10 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/real-monsters-leviticus https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/when-church-fails-small-town-queer-people-who-steps THIS YEAR’S TRIBECA Film Festival featured an intriguing pair of documentaries about gay life in small towns, one released 20 years ago and one brand-new. Together the two of them offer unexpected vistas of hope and community. The 2006 documentary Small Town Gay Bar (available for free on YouTube) follows the story of several gay bars in and around Shannon, Miss., near Elvis Presley’s hometown. It’s immediately clear that, for queer residents in this town of less than 1,500, the gay bars provide a shelter and a lifeline in an otherwise bleak and often scary existence. “You walk in and you walk into family,” says one patron. “If there wasn’t a gay bar there wouldn’t be any kind of community,” says another. Wed, 19 Aug 2026 15:52:01 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/when-church-fails-small-town-queer-people-who-steps https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/instagram-guru-or-ancient-gnostic I’VE RECENTLY NOTICED a type of ad popping up on social media. It hooks you in as a personal testimonial, from an expert or a deeply experienced source, with statements like: “I’m a parasitologist, and I couldn’t understand how Koreans eat raw fish regularly without getting parasites, until I learned their secret.” Or “I tried every single possible way to get rid of that musty smell after washing my clothes, until I realized it was coming from something none of the go-to cleaners target.” Or “Everybody always asks me why my face looks 25 when I’m actually 40. You wouldn’t believe how simple my nightly routine is.” Wed, 19 Aug 2026 13:48:03 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/instagram-guru-or-ancient-gnostic https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/how-sojourners-got-translated-urdu SOMETIMES THE WORLD is very small. The Catholic priest from Pakistan handed me a self-published booklet in Urdu and pointed to a single English word: Sojourners. Pakistan is a third of the way around the globe from my home in California. Father Emmanuel Asi was in the Ojai Valley (where I live) for four days, visiting members of the Pakistani Christian diaspora. As part of his hosting team, I was eager to learn more about this liberation theologian from Lahore. And learn how articles from Sojourners ended up translated into Urdu. Wed, 19 Aug 2026 13:39:43 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/how-sojourners-got-translated-urdu https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/we-dont-have-work-way IN TODAY’S CONVENIENCE-BASED economy, powered by 24-hour availability and instant shipping, we heavily rely on a labor force that is invisible. Gone are the days of an 8-hour workday and a 5-day workweek for most Americans, especially those in the service industry, gig economy, and logistics sector. Now gaining momentum is the “996” schedule—which stands for 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 60% of the U.S. workforce is paid hourly and work the shifts that allow for a 24-hour a day economy. To make that economy run, reports labor researcher Kristen Harknett, 69% are required by their employer to keep their schedules “open and available” to work whenever needed, often causing a major disruption in family life. Wed, 19 Aug 2026 13:07:12 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/we-dont-have-work-way https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/when-oppressor-and-oppressed-pray-same-god HAVE YOU PRAYED about this? Martin Luther King Jr. and his compatriots in the Civil Rights Movement could emphatically say yes. They prayed before boycotts, before marches, and covered every nonviolent, disruptive, anti-racist action they took in prayer. Pete Hegseth could also say yes. He prayed at the Pentagon in April as the U.S. initiated an inhumane and nonsensical war in Iran. Hegseth called for God’s blessing on the U.S. military action, inviting God to move with vengeance and anger. (Oddly, his prayer closely followed a scene in the film Pulp Fiction.) Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:59:11 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/when-oppressor-and-oppressed-pray-same-god https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/how-should-candidates-talk-about-their-faith WE’RE APPROACHING ANOTHER polarizing election, with major implications for our future as a nation. As candidates try to appeal to prospective voters, one method is to bring their personal faith beliefs into their campaign. For example, in a 30-second ad for his congressional campaign, Florida Republican Austin Rogers tells voters: “In high school, I had a real encounter with God. It changed everything. Since then, my foundation is simple: faith, family, freedom.” Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:46:17 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/how-should-candidates-talk-about-their-faith https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/write-vision-make-it-plain IF I LEARNED one thing from my decade-and-a-half in the pulpit, it’s that preaching ain’t easy. In any given church service, a sea of faces stares back at you with a mix of expectation and distraction. Bulletins are folded, throats cleared, bodies settled. From the pulpit, you can see almost everything: The longtime member nodding off; the man checking scores on his phone; the family holding it together by a thread financially; the empty spot where a couple who hasn’t returned since the last election used to sit. You know whatever you say will land in entirely different ways around the room. So you write and rewrite a sermon, softening one phrase and sharpening another, wondering who will hear a summons to justice and who will hear an accusation. Sometimes you feel the call to speak truth in love, even at the risk of losing the very people you shepherd. Other times, you hold back, knowing silence, too, has consequences. Tue, 18 Aug 2026 16:38:58 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/write-vision-make-it-plain https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/defense-snakes ONE SUMMER AFTERNOON, as our kids played in our front yard in rural Georgia, a car stopped on the road; the driver got out, and we heard loud cracks. The children dashed inside as my husband, Michael, walked toward the stopped car. The driver, an older man, fired his handgun at something in the road. An older woman remained in the car. Michael asked the man what he was doing. The man said he stopped to kill a snake. The wounded snake slithered into the grass across our road. “It’s just a black rat snake,” Michael said, “It’s not dangerous.” Michael told the man we didn’t want him shooting. The man seemed confused. He said he thought he was protecting our children from danger. Michael was firm. The greatest danger we perceived was the gun. “Well, we won’t help you anymore!” The woman said as they drove away. The man with the gun, like many humans, has been conditioned to kill snakes. A small 1987 experiment in Kansas found that more drivers than not swerved to hit a fake snake in the road. Scientists are still trying to figure out whether humans have an innate fear of snakes or just a keen perception of them, rooted in survival instincts. Fear is often rooted in wisdom; some snakes can kill. But hatred of snakes in general, born of ignorance and reinforced by bad theology, can be unlearned. Mon, 17 Aug 2026 16:43:58 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/september-october-2026/defense-snakes https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/new-and-noteworthy-young-king-biblical-interpretation-and-more Safe Havens For undocumented migrants facing deportation, church can be more than a place of worship—it can become a home. Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:27:40 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/new-and-noteworthy-young-king-biblical-interpretation-and-more https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/humor/just-what-we-need-reassuring-uncertainty-about-aliens SO MANY TROUBLING things are happening these days that it’s hard to get out of bed, especially for yet another breakfast of homemade yogurt and granola with toasted sourdough bread, also homemade. Living in a fast-food desert, with at least three organic food stores within a mile of our home, it’s not easy to find the sublime comfort that junk food provides to an anxious spirit in challenging times. And with so many farm-to-table friends looking on, it’s hard to keep up appearances and maintain that brave free-range face. Thu, 16 Jul 2026 15:43:30 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/humor/just-what-we-need-reassuring-uncertainty-about-aliens https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/god-holding I DON’T KNOW about you, but I’m having a tough time. I look around and so much is broken that I don’t know how to fix. To make matters worse, your personal life never gives you a break just because the world is falling apart, which hardly seems fair. It’s always something, and it’s just too much for one person to hold. We are not the first to feel this way. I found inspiration in the characters from our lectionary texts this month. They faced great challenges, too, and surely felt the same despair and fear we do. They navigated uncertainty, conflict, and circumstances beyond their control. And yet, it turns out God didn’t need them to be perfectly faithful or unshakingly stable. When Peter gets scared and starts to sink, Jesus pulls him back up. When Moses’ life is threatened at birth, six women participate in his rescue (and it takes all of them). Peter questions Jesus to his face because he does not understand. Jesus corrects him without kicking him off the team. The heroes of these stories and of our faith are brave and also human—just like us. God is not upset about our human limitations. God sticks it out with us. Maybe faith isn’t about holding everything together. Maybe it’s about trusting that we are being held, even when we’re not sure we can hold on. Thu, 16 Jul 2026 15:13:04 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/god-holding https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/abiding Every first contains within the seed of its last. This is part of living. Before you arrived, you appeared to me in a dream. Wed, 15 Jul 2026 14:02:59 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/abiding https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/children-strife-theology-not-fantasy ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY’S Children of Time series begins with a premise so simple it sounds like a B-movie: What if we landed on a planet full of talking spiders? From that jumping-off point, he builds a story spanning star systems and thousands of years with remarkable insight and humanity. Four books in, with Children of Strife ’s 2026 arrival, he is still asking the question driving the whole series—Who is my neighbor?—and still finding ways to make the answer genuinely uncertain. Wed, 15 Jul 2026 13:31:17 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/children-strife-theology-not-fantasy https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/we-need-more-poetry-public-life FOR MY GRANDFATHER’S first death anniversary, my mother wanted me to design a thank-you card for those who supported our family throughout the year. The card featured a poem I wrote recounting one of my treasured memories with him: feeding his chickens as a rooster crowed in the wee hours of the morning. Upon reading it, one of my uncles smiled and asked, “Did you include this because your Lolo was a poet?” I didn’t. The 8,441 miles between Dallas, Texas, and Daanbantayan, Cebu, Philippines, left me bereft of the more intimate details of my grandfather’s life, including that we shared an affinity for the written word. This unexpected link soothed my suffocating sadness at our now permanent separation, thanks to a medium that is often at the crossroads of mending what is broken. Wed, 15 Jul 2026 13:18:45 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/we-need-more-poetry-public-life https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/what-clarice-lispector-taught-me-about-freedom AUGUST IS THE month of spider webs. Where I live in Chicago, they erupt and crackle from corners and streetlamps and porches, birthing and killing multitudes. It’s a month of green exploding and beginning to rot, a month of lingering heat and thunderstorms and frayed nerves and migraines, a stickiness that won’t go away. I’m uncomfortably alive. Wed, 15 Jul 2026 13:07:33 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/what-clarice-lispector-taught-me-about-freedom https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/love-remains-shows-directors-gods-eye-view ALFRED HITCHCOCK ONCE said, “In feature films the director is God; in documentary films, God is the director.” That’s true in a more theologically complex way than the director of Psycho and Vertigo meant. In a literal sense, a director controls a movie’s tone, guides actors’ performances, and chooses which shots make it into the final cut. In doing so, the finished product’s audience understands the story, characters, and themes through the director’s perspective. We see their creations as they see them, the same way God understands us entirely, beyond our actions and curated exteriors. Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:50:31 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/love-remains-shows-directors-gods-eye-view https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/can-we-reform-our-souls-going-analog ACROSS SOCIAL MEDIA you’ll find sped-up videos of people sitting and doing nothing. They settle in alone, with no phones, and simply sit with their thoughts. The figures in these videos are trying to retrain their attention spans. After years of mindlessly scrolling through social media, they now film themselves, clasping their hands, tapping their thumbs, closing their eyes. In The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource, author and political commentator Chris Hayes argues that technology firms are deliberately chipping away at our ability to focus. He details how our attention spans and value systems have been reoriented and commodified for financial gain. Attention “is the foundation for nearly all we do,” he writes, “from the relationships we build to the way we act as workers, consumers, and citizens.” Our attention is precious and we need to protect it, to draw it close. As inherently curious individuals, the deep dive of doom-scrolling harms us. It cuts to the deepest part of us, the inquisitive part, which can’t contend with the infinite content overload of social media. Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:33:26 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/can-we-reform-our-souls-going-analog https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/preparing-our-spirits-midterm-elections IN SOME WAYS, this November will be an ordinary national election in the United States. As is true in every “even” year, all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are up for reelection. In the U.S. Senate, 35 seats are up for reelection. In 2024, it was 34 seats; in 2022, it was 35. Incumbents tend to have an advantage in elections. All very normal. Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:22:47 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/preparing-our-spirits-midterm-elections https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/we-almost-foolishly-dismantled-our-ocean-sensor-network I HAVE BEEN involved in many a church planning process over the years—I’m old enough to remember, say, Vision 2000, and Vision 2010, and Vision 2020 (extra points for that name). Doubtless now there are congregations across America involved in a “Vision 2030” process, and doubtless the first PowerPoint slide for their first meeting has words from Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:15:22 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/we-almost-foolishly-dismantled-our-ocean-sensor-network https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/can-we-disarm-ai WHEN POPE LEO XIV published “Magnifica Humanitas” in May, what struck me most was a verb. The Pope reaches twice for the same words—“to disarm”—as he reflects on artificial intelligence and the civilization we are building. As someone who spent more than a decade working on nuclear disarmament, including helping to build the campaign that produced the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, that verb landed differently for me than it might for most readers. This spring, I signed the “Pro-Human AI Declaration,” a document that calls for centering human dignity and equity at the heart of AI governance. Having worked inside the nuclear disarmament framework, I want to offer an honest accounting: what it can teach us, where the analogy breaks down, and why people of faith may be essential to making any of this operational. Wed, 15 Jul 2026 09:49:11 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/can-we-disarm-ai https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/holy-disruption-fossil-fuel-crisis IN APRIL, REPRESENTATIVES from 57 nations met in Santa Marta, Colombia, shattering bureaucratic climate change gridlock to forge a “coalition of the willing“ for a just transition beyond the use of fossil fuels. Together, they moved past the question of if we should abandon fossil fuels; the gathering in Santa Marta focused entirely on how. Global climate leadership is being rewritten, forged through a rare convergence of political courage and multifaith prophetic witness. Wed, 15 Jul 2026 09:34:19 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/holy-disruption-fossil-fuel-crisis https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/god-numbers-our-hairs-now-dhs-trying-do-same IN MATTHEW 10, Jesus tells his disciples not to fear their persecutors, for “nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered.” He then assures them that “even the hairs of your head are all counted” by God (verses. 26-30). Some human entities seem to aspire to this level of knowledge. Congress approved a multibillion-dollar increase to the Department of Homeland Security’s budget last year, and DHS has been rapidly expanding their surveillance technology. This includes location trackers, license plate readers, facial recognition technology, and iris scanners. Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:42:59 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/god-numbers-our-hairs-now-dhs-trying-do-same https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/editors-hallelujahs-and-howls-are-birthed-together THE LATE CONTEMPLATIVE Christian theologian and professor Barbara Holmes wrote about “crisis contemplation” for upside-down eras. Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:34:19 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/editors-hallelujahs-and-howls-are-birthed-together https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/making-immigration-illegal-ignored-real-issues LAURA WAS AN Ecuadoran painter who sold her colorful pastoral scenes to tourists on the streets of Quito. Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and the tourists stopped coming. Her livelihood gone, Laura hired smugglers to help her join family in the United States. She arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2021, shortly after the border wall had been raised in places from 12 to 30 feet, through the efforts of the Trump administration. The smugglers leaned a ladder against the high wall for Laura to climb. Once she reached the top, they took the ladder away. She fell into the U.S., fracturing her spine, pelvis, and both legs. She had arrived, but at terrible cost. I wrote about Laura [a pseudonym] in Strangers in the Province of Joy, my recent book on migration across the southern border. Her story illustrates a larger point: We cannot solely enforce our way to a functioning immigration system. The $147 million price tag to raise the border wall caused a sharp increase in migrant injuries and deaths, but it did not significantly deter border crossings. And the southern border wall is just one manifestation of decades of increasingly more restrictive policies that have cost billions, killed thousands—and largely failed to curb unauthorized migration. Mon, 13 Jul 2026 13:44:29 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/making-immigration-illegal-ignored-real-issues https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/anti-capitalist-take-parable-talents THE CONCEPT OF talent as innate skill comes from an interpretation of one of Jesus’ parables (Matthew 25:14–30). In the parable, a man entrusted his slaves to grow his wealth by investing his money for him. A talent was a unit of currency and roughly represented 20 years of wages for an average worker. The story goes: The rich man gave one slave five talents, another two talents, and another one talent. When he returned, the first slave had doubled his investment to 10 talents. The master said, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things; I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” The second slave also doubled his investment and received the same reward. The third slave returned the one talent he was given. “Master,” he explained, “I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.” Mon, 13 Jul 2026 13:16:53 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2026/anti-capitalist-take-parable-talents https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/culture/story-bible-inviting-kids-scriptures-complexity I don’t want to exaggerate, but my family are sort of kids’ Bible specialists. We’ve been through a fair many, both for independent reading for our 8-year-old daughter and for the family reading time we share every night. That’s why I greeted The Just Love Story Bible (Beaming Books) by Jacqui Lewis and Shannon Daley-Harris, with illustrations by Cheryl “Ras” Thuesday, with excitement—it offered just the sort of justice-centered telling of scripture that my wife and I are trying to expose our daughter to. Thu, 25 Jun 2026 09:13:22 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/culture/story-bible-inviting-kids-scriptures-complexity https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/new-and-noteworthy-friendlier-churches-democracy-and-more Clarity Amid the Noise The Straight White American Jesus podcast believes “democracy depends on religious literacy.” Hosts Bradley Onishi and Daniel Miller, both former evangelical pastors, offer weekly Sunday interviews and refreshing insights on current events. Axis Mundi Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:46:45 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/new-and-noteworthy-friendlier-churches-democracy-and-more https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/culture/sisters-epistolary SHANDA MCMANUS HAD just finished her first semester of medical school when she found out her little brother, Monir Hall, had been struck down in a drive-by shooting. As she was becoming a doctor, Hall—an army veteran and father of two, just shy of his 21st birthday—was selling crack in their Philadelphia neighborhood. In a cold hospital room where Hall lay brain-dead, McManus pressed her hand to her brother’s chest and thought she felt faint beats of his heart. In her debut memoir Brother Epistles, McManus recounts the night when she walked out of that room. She “had the sense of facing two doors, one marked DIE and the other LIVE.” She “stepped, unfeeling, through the second.” Tue, 23 Jun 2026 17:33:03 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/culture/sisters-epistolary https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/culture/mon-rov-offers-folk-hymns-displaced “REMEMBER, LIFE DOES not have to end with suffering,” writes Janjay Lowe in an Instagram caption promoting his latest album Bloodline. Performing under the moniker Mon Rovîa, the Chattanooga-based folk singer’s debut is a chillingly tender body of work. Tapping into the storytelling of his lineage through the sounds of his adoptive home, every strum, chord progression, and harmony is a cultural exchange. Tue, 23 Jun 2026 17:06:12 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/culture/mon-rov-offers-folk-hymns-displaced https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/culture/blue-heron-infuses-memory-grace I didn’t expect to cry watching hash browns burn in a cast-iron pan, but that’s the shattering power of director Sophy Romvari’s Blue Heron, a semi-autobiographical drama that ruminates on the power and limits of our memories. Tue, 23 Jun 2026 13:08:22 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/culture/blue-heron-infuses-memory-grace https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/practice-micro-joy A FRIEND RECENTLY shared with me her practice of micro joy—pausing to appreciate the small things—and I can’t stop thinking about that word “micro.” When things are so very wrong on a macro level, it can be easy to neglect altogether the seemingly small stuff. But what if the small stuff is actually the big stuff? Maybe connecting with my daughter by getting down on her level is resistance. Taking time to admire the sunset is prayer. Inviting my neighbor over for coffee is the work. I don’t suggest burying our heads in the sand about the big injustices to focus only on the here and now. I simply mean that the daily little practices and gestures contribute to a healthier soil in which liberation can sprout. These small acts prepare the ground—and that work matters. Not all kingdom work is big or flashy or causes a system overhaul. But the little choices have ripple effects and something as tiny as a mustard seed can grow a tree. A little bit of grace, a little bit of courage, a little bit of hope, a little bit of prayer, a little bit of love can go a long way toward reorganizing the system so that everyone’s potential gets planted in equal soil. Mary Oliver’s words keep playing on repeat in my head, “I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass.” Tue, 23 Jun 2026 12:39:04 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/practice-micro-joy https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/culture/why-are-so-many-drawn-authoritarianism THE QUESTION IS no longer whether we live in a time of democracy’s collapse in the U.S. The question is how we got here. Historian Ibram X. Kendi might have uncovered that history. Tue, 23 Jun 2026 11:42:41 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/culture/why-are-so-many-drawn-authoritarianism https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/song-sorrow I’ve been contemplating going off-grid— writing a new Scripture of fire and flood, the next Revelation. Tue, 23 Jun 2026 11:00:58 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/song-sorrow https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/humor/career-planning-rocks MY DAUGHTER LEAVES for college in a few weeks, and there’s been an uptick in “for the rest of my life”-type conversations at our house. Since graduating from college, I have been a musician, a hotline operator, a collections specialist, an accountant, a project manager, a pastor, a consultant, and an executive in a faith-based social justice nonprofit. And I have a bachelor’s degree in geology. It rocks. My career path has been much more of a hiking trail with poor signage than a career ladder. Tue, 23 Jun 2026 10:35:31 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/humor/career-planning-rocks https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/what-claude-cant-generate SOMETIMES I HAVE what they call “lucid dreams.” I’m aware that what I’m experiencing is a product of my mind and not tethered to outside realities (like the law of gravity). I can wake myself up—with much effort—by yelling in my dream, which actually activates my real vocal cords (to my husband’s annoyance). As in the films The Matrix and Inception, the million-dollar question arises: How do we know what is real and what is all in our heads? With the skyrocketing use of generative AI in our everyday lives—from work reports to dinner-table Googling—the question takes on new layers. How can we tell when something is generated by Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT? What are the telltale signs of the “uncanny valley” experience? And—more importantly—is there something distinct and irreplaceable about our embodied reality that AI cannot simulate? Mon, 22 Jun 2026 17:47:50 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/what-claude-cant-generate https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/rejecting-arts-war DURING WORLD WAR II, my grandmother worked as a nurse and office clerk at Civilian Public Service Camp No. 7 in Magnolia, Ark., the only one of more than 150 CPS work camps across the United States that exclusively held religious conscientious objectors to war. Mon, 22 Jun 2026 16:18:34 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/rejecting-arts-war https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/pursuing-faithful-response-election-subversion THE FIRST TIME I voted, at age 18, I was both nervous and filled with a sense of sacred responsibility. As someone mesmerized by the Civil Rights Movement, I was painfully aware that my African American mother couldn’t vote in most of the South when she was 18 in 1959, due to pernicious barriers such as poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and the threat of violence. Mon, 22 Jun 2026 15:54:19 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/pursuing-faithful-response-election-subversion https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/editors-it-armageddon-yet THIS YEAR MIGHT BE among the hottest on Earth. Free and fair elections are being subverted in the U.S. According to Scot Nakagawa, Christian nationalism is like a bus ready to run down trans rights on the road to authoritarianism, and the U.S. military chaplaincy program has been co-opted by people preparing to usher in the apocalyptic end times through American troops. Just like kids on a long metaphorical road trip, some of us may be asking, “Is it Armageddon yet?” Or maybe we’re asking, along with poet Tyler Truman Julian, “When is the time to flee?” Mon, 22 Jun 2026 14:14:22 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/editors-it-armageddon-yet https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/theological-uncertainty-condition-abandonment-decision THE AUTHORITARIAN MOVEMENT reshaping American public life has a Christian vehicle—and it is the fastest-growing sect of Christianity in the country today. The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), which seeks an explicitly Christian command of government, is no longer fringe. It’s running the show. The “Seven Mountains” dominionist theology instructs followers to place government, media, education, arts, business, family, and religious institutions all under Christian control. That’s happening. The Seven Mountains Mandate is a published road map for Christian authoritarian takeover. They are already “sending the bus” to capture the rights of transgender Americans. Attacks on progressive and mainline Christians are a later stop on the same route. Mon, 22 Jun 2026 13:30:16 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/theological-uncertainty-condition-abandonment-decision https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/what-works-address-homelessness THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION announced in March an agreement between the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Justice that would make it easier to place homeless veterans under conservatorship. This means that VA attorneys can now be appointed as special assistant U.S. attorneys who have the power to initiate guardianship for homeless veterans and increase involuntary hospitalization for those with mental illnesses. While people struggling with mental illness and addiction need more support, this is not the way to provide it. Mon, 22 Jun 2026 11:44:05 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/what-works-address-homelessness