Devotion in the Study of Religion

The best scholarship involves slow, painstaking, humble work to cherish the “unknowable more” in human beings and human experience, and to respond with creativity. By Stephanie Paulsell

Summer/Autumn 2014

Featured

Two-Part Invention

Our vocational lives tend to be complex, unpredictable searches for meaning on many levels, from the quotidian to the transcendent. By Nancy J. Nordenson

Photo of logs lining a path through the woods

The Work of Art and the Art of Life

Art, religion, ritual, dance, and song are not different phenomena, but moments in an existential struggle to act vicariously upon the world—bringing it into being. By Michael Jackson

Detail from an early renaissance portrait painting of a man representing Jesus

Who is Jesus Today?

Recovering the permanent Jewishness—not just of “Jesus,” but also of “Christ”—defines the essential work that Christians must do after Auschwitz. By James Carroll

Dialogue

What Faith Communities Can Teach Psychiatrists about Depression

Psychiatrists are often blind to the many ways that faith communities can contribute toward soothing the emotional suffering of the depressed. By Dan G. Blazer

Conversations with Nuns

After a year at a women’s monastery, the author reflects on Eastern Orthodox Christianity less as a religion and more as a therapeutic treatment to move closer to God. By Amelia Perkins

Unsealed Memories

Any work toward racial reconciliation and healing must start with facing up to the evils of our past. By Melissa W. Bartholomew

A Protestant Poet’s Theology of Sound

Emily Dickinson’s sense of her own “slow idolatry” helps this poet/pastor struggle with some vocational conundrums. By Nate Klug

In Review

Books

The Prophetic Vocation(s) of Julia Budenz

Reflecting on Julia Budenz’s life and life’s work, a single 2,200-page poem, The Gardens of Flora Baum. By Marion Torchia

Photo of man sitting on a chair on small stage, with actors behind him

Theater

‘Freedom Entered the Room’

For Bill Cain, Jesuit playwright, writing is his priestly calling. By Robert Israel

Books

Liberation Theology Redux?

In the Company of the Poor: Conversations with Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez, edited by Michael Griffin and Jennie Weiss Block. By Harvey Cox

Books

Paying Attention to Pain

Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams: Essays. By Sejal H. Patel

TV | Books

Girls and Sarah Coakley, Through a Theological Lens of Desire

Examining the relationship between desire and transformation in two disparate works: Girls and Sarah Coakley’s God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay “On the Trinity.” By Peter Boumgarden

Poetry

Two Poems

Outside the Monastery

The Mummies

By Anthony Opal

Two Poems

Prognosis

One

By Mary Peelen

Perspective

Summer Autumn 2014 issue cover

The Masks We Wear

In this issue, there is not a sense of “landing” on certainties, but more a feeling of “dreaming” (in all its connotations). By Wendy McDowell

From the archive

Francois Bovon

A Look Back

Dreams, Kindness, and Determination

Excerpts from a 2004 Q&A with François Bovon in which he discusses his research interests and his books Studies in Early Christianity and Les Derniers Jours de Jesus.

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