This Online Articles area (formerly our Library) gathers reflections, op-eds, and essays that engage the pressing questions of faith, justice, and public life. Here, you’ll find hundreds of thoughtful and engaging pieces from scholars, practitioners, and everyday Christians — leaders and writers who bring fresh insight and faithful imagination. These articles are meant to spark deeper discipleship, fuel courageous action, and equip the church to embody the gospel in a complex world. We invite you to explore, learn, and join the ongoing conversation toward a fuller expression of Christian faithfulness and a more just society.
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By Rev. Dr. Allen L. Hollie Jr.
“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing… O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” – Romans 7:18-24
The Epistle and the Experience
When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Rome, admitting that a war raged within his own members, he was not offering abstract theology.
By Margaret Kim Peterson
I was surprised, a decade ago, when for the first time a student sat down in my office and told me that he was a sex addict. Of course I already knew that you can’t tell by looking at a person what may be going on in his or her life.
By Sara Burback
On March 23, I had the opportunity to join over 7,000 runners of all ages gathered in Bethlehem’s Manger Square, awaiting the signal to cross the starting line to begin the 6th annual Palestine Marathon.
By Janell Anema
Contagion. Outbreak. Epidemic.
No, I’m not talking about Ebola. I’m talking about suicide. And these days, it feels like everyone is talking about suicide. Perhaps one reason is because, contrary to popular belief, suicide rates spike in late spring and early summer.
By Scott Bessenecker
What if there were secret rules to the game of Monopoly, hidden to the greedy, the arrogant and the power-hungry? What if things like giving away property, loaning money at low interest rates, redistributing property when things got too lopsided or lowering rent for those who couldn’t afford to land on your space were actions that were recorded and honored?
By Rachel Marie Stone
By Rachel Marie Stone
I was born the same year that a strange malady called GRID first began killing gay men in New York and San Francisco. My mom received several pints of donated blood right after I was born, a few years before HIV was identified as the cause of GRID.
By Ross Murray
In my time creating and leading The Naming Project, I’ve come to understand a principle that has become the bedrock of my ministry with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth:
Believe what youth tell you about themselves.
By Samuel K. Atchison
During my youth in the 1970s, it was common among some African Americans to refer knowingly to what was then termed the “master plan.”
By Ethan Tan
On November 9, 2016, I rode the regional rail to my grad school class. People cried on the train, on the street, in class. Instead of the usual lecture and discussion on social policy, our professor presided over a group therapy session where we were all stupefied at the prospect of a Trump presidency.
By Amy Knorr
The miles on the GPS ticked down as we drove. I should have been happy. Fewer miles means closer to home, right? But somehow, the rolling numbers felt like the pull of a rope, slowly tugging my family out of the open pastures of vacation and back into the harness of everyday humdrum.
By Melanie Springer Mock
Amy Jacober remembers well the anger she felt when, in her early 20s, she saw a first-grade girl get kicked out of her church’s youth choir.
By Benjamin Capps
“He is risen,” cries the preacher, eliciting the nearly automatic and yet enthusiastic response: “He is risen, indeed, Alleluia!”
As someone who is tied into a more liturgical wing of the church, the Easter season is marked by its length.
By Katelyn Durst
I am not black.
I am not white.
I am somewhere between the ink and the page,
the word that is blurred out.
I am not what you assume
She speaks Spanish…
can’t quite place her….
By Sarah Quezada
My cell phone rang while I was at work. I picked it up and closed my office door. “My mom called,” my fiancé Billy told me, his voice small and quiet. “She and my dad were denied visas for the wedding.”
I sat silently for a moment, stunned.
By Micky ScottBey Jones
A Booklet of Uncommon Prayer is now available electronically!
To celebrate, we’re reposting Micky ScottBey Jones’s beautiful introduction to these timely and life-giving prayers.
Prayer has been a constant in my life.
By St. Francis of Assisi
Canticle of the Sun
by St. Francis of Assisi
Most high, all powerful, all good Lord!
All praise is Yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing.
By Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
American Christians in the Obama years half hoped we’d moved beyond race. Yes, the Civil Rights Movement was a moral cause, we told ourselves. But we have moved beyond that now. We took down the Whites Only signs, integrated the schools, and saw a black man rise to this nation’s highest office.