Kendall Gunter

Creation, Incarnation, and the Fellowship of Christ’s Body

How Harold Braswell Considers Christ’s Crucifixion

Christian Wiman’s Survival Is a Style

Reflections on the Contemporary Identity “Crisis” and the Burden of Self-Uncertainty

My friends and I approached the concession counter. (One of us wanted Milk Duds.) An employee, a black woman, glanced over and inquired which movie we three white men were seeing. I replied, “Kanye’s,” with a hopefully self-aware smirk. She rolled her eyes and shook her head wryly. A lot of people have some thoughts […]

I rarely said the Lord’s Prayer growing up. My ministers, suspicious of any swish of ritual, took it as a template and taught me to ad lib to Our Father. I’ve learned to value that emphasis on spontaneous communication and individual requests. Although I now recite Jesus’ formula more often, I decided to do so […]

An excerpt from David Bentley Hart’s provocative new book, That All Shall Be Saved. As this chapter’s title suggested, he’s “Doubting the Answers,” and he’s giving us something to think about: … for Christian thought in general, the question of one’s just deserts before God is irrelevant—as it was, for instance, for the woman taken […]

Why are we talking so much about bodies? Not just Christians, but everyone. Whether it’s our devotion to workouts and dieting, our “gender trouble” and overwrought attempts at sexual ethics, our reproductive anxieties, our reckoning with racial histories, our climate emergency, or some other perplexity, the fleshiness of our lives stands front and center in […]

What episode from the Gospels fascinates you? For John Kaag, it’s the Gerasene Demoniac. Even now, after leaving his churchy childhood and growing up into an agnostic professor of philosophy, that story still holds his focus. Apparently it’s grabbed Mockingbird’s attention, too, since the story has appeared a couple of times here on the site. […]

I tie my Hat—I crease my Shawl— Life’s little duties do—precisely— As the very least Were infinite—to me— I put new Blossoms in the Glass— And throw the old—away— I push a petal from my gown That anchored there—I weigh The time ’twill be till six o’clock I have so much to do— And yet—Existence—some […]

I’m an individualist who protects himself with information. That’s what the Enneagram tells me, or what my friends who’ve studied it tell me it tells me. I used to resent personality tests—you can’t put me in a box!—but then the personality test explained why I resented them in the first place—because I want to be […]

Ruby slouched in a corner, bottom lip bulging. The droves of other 2- to 7-year-olds ignored her, since a distressed child was more common than a calm one. I hesitated to speak, anticipating the melodrama that was about to erupt. Then it began: Me: Ruby, what’s wrong? Ruby: I want that toy. M: What toy? […]