https://sojo.net/feeds/articles Sojourners Magazine Articles en 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 https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/how-christian-nationalists-took-control-us-military FORMER FOX NEWS host and current Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has some revealing tattoos. Across his right bicep is the phrase Deus Vult (“God wills it”), a rallying cry from the 11th century Crusades, and on his right pec is the Jerusalem Cross, which was carried by Christian crusaders on medieval campaigns to conquer the Muslim Ottoman Empire. Back when Hegseth was a TV commentator, he laid out his vision for a new wave of American holy wars, both foreign and domestic, in American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free. “Surrounded by the Left, with the odds stacked against us,” he wrote, “only a crusade will do.” Since becoming defense secretary in 2025, Hegseth has attempted to implement a Christian crusade mentality within the U.S. military. In the buildup to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran in late February, Hegseth held a Christian worship service at the Pentagon. He prayed for God’s blessing on “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy,” and said, “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.” While President Trump warned Iran to “Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” Hegseth provided the religious apocalyptic validation for the violence—both positioning the U.S. war machine as being on the side of the angels: Deus vult. Mon, 22 Jun 2026 10:12:36 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/how-christian-nationalists-took-control-us-military https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/retired-not-done AS A FEDERAL WORKER, Peter Goering was never told he couldn’t participate in social activism, but the message was clear: “We didn’t have any explicit prohibitions from participating in civil disobedience actions,” Goering said. “But an arrest here or there may have caught up with me.” Things changed for Goering with his December 2023 retirement from the Food and Drug Administration, where he worked on medical product safety. Two weeks after he left his job, he was arrested in a civil disobedience action—his first ever—protesting Israel’s assault on Gaza. Since his retirement, Goering has played a leadership role in his local Mennonite Action chapter, helping to organize protests around Gaza, ICE abuses, and at D.C.’s Museum of the Bible. In February, Goering joined a delegation that planted olive trees in the Palestinian West Bank. Goering isn’t alone in his post-retirement activism. The wave of demonstrations against the authoritarian excesses of the second Trump regime has been marked by an abundance of gray hair. “In America, we associate activism with youth,” Deana Rohlinger, a sociologist at Florida State University, told Forbes magazine. “We often don’t see older Americans as engaged—but they are.” Wed, 17 Jun 2026 07:01:42 EDT Sojourners https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2026/retired-not-done 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