Top Books of 2015

Article

Old News: The World Is Not Christian

Unlike past Eurocentric taxonomies of world religions, the latest Norton anthology aims to let six major, living, international religions speak...in their own words.

By Molly Farneth

May 18, 2015

Article

Moral Agents

Mailer, Trilling, Macdonald, Kazin, Maxwell, Bellow, Auden, O'Hara—men with public moral concerns, who seized power to shape American literature. But who were they?

April 20, 2015

Article

The Liberal Arts vs. Neoliberalism

William Deresiewicz not only critiques the idea that college education is about learning marketable skills; he also revives the quest for meaning, self, and soul.

April 20, 2015

Article

‘After Roe’

Mary Ziegler’s account of the “lost” history of Roe may surprise even the closest (and oldest) observers of the battles following the 1973 Supreme Court decision.

By Margaret O'Brien Steinfels

October 29, 2015

U.S. Catholicism

Abortion

Books

Article

The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio

Sexual misdeeds, false identities, cult worship, theft, and murder; if this astonishing tale were not true, it could be the work of an accomplished mystery writer.

October 30, 2014

Article

One Nation Under God

Kevin Kruse convincingly claims that the association of patriotism with Christianity comes from a libertarian reaction in American business to the New Deal.

April 20, 2015

Muslim-Christian Relations

Poverty

Secularism and Modernity

Social Justice

Theology

U.S. Catholicism

Article

Living with a Wild God

In trying to make sense of recurring “strange” episodes of altered consciousness in her life—similar to those of mystics—atheist Barbara Ehrenreich discovers limits.

September 29, 2014

Article

Bookmarks | How Racism Speaks

Claudia Rankine’s 'Citizen' and Jeffery Renard Allen’s 'Song of the Shank' both take up the issue of race in America in jagged and beautiful poetry and prose.

July 29, 2015

Continuing the Conversation

Article

The Wisdom of the Beguines

Laura Swan does a good job of explaining both the beguines’ spiritual practices in the context of their own times and how their continuing legacy affects us today.

July 29, 2015

Article

Believe It or Not

“New atheists” like Richard Dawkins have made a splash with aggressive attacks on religion. But Michael Ruse, philosopher and reflective atheist, is not impressed.

By Gary Gutting

April 18, 2015

Secularism and Modernity

Book Essay

Books

Theology

Article

Our Kids

The pattern of income inequality is more than a social problem, Robert Putnam says; it's a social tragedy, most devastating in the lives of poor American children.

By Barbara Dafoe Whitehead

June 1, 2015

Article

'The Great Reformer'

In exposing Pope Francis's accomplishments, Austen Ivereigh presents “the concrete Catholic thing” as something that has the power to create true solidarity.

January 22, 2015