popular culture

Let’s have the required etymological look at the winning word and get it over with: Koinonia (/ˌkɔɪnoʊˈniːə/) is a transliterated form of the Greek word, κοινωνία, which means communion, joint…

A younger Paul Schrader might have chosen to end this film, which many critics are calling his masterpiece, in apocalyptic violence. But I don’t think it’s quite right to conclude that Schrader has simply mellowed in his eighth decade.

Warning: numerous spoilers ahead. “Who will release me from the body of this death?” This question, posed rhetorically in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, has become a real question for the Rev. Ernst…

Like all progressives, Trump’s victory in 2016 sent me into a funk. Now, as the concrete consequences of that election unfold, my Trump Funk even deepens. Most readers needn’t be reminded of the list…

After Bishop Michael Bruce Curry delivered his sermon at today’s wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, many observers around the world wondered, as one headline put it, “Who was the Jesuit priest…

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) was established in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, American men who were significantly influenced by a Christian organization called the Oxford Group. Central to AA…

The following is an exclusive excerpt from Kaleidoscope , a podcast featuring conversations on religion with the people often left out of conversations on religion and politics hosted by Deborah Jian…

Fifty years ago today, the Catonsville Nine burned draft files at the local draft board in Catonsville, Maryland. Two Catholic priests, Jesuit Daniel Berrigan and Josephite Philip Berrigan, along with…

The following is an exclusive excerpt from Kaleidoscope , a podcast featuring conversations on religion with the people often left out of conversations on religion and politics hosted by Deborah Jian…

“Children are the ways that the world begins again and again.” - June Jordan, The Creative Spirit and Children’s Literature (1977) Our daughter, Sophia, doesn’t know exactly what she wants to do when…