In an excerpt from her book, Joy Marie Clarkson explores the natural metaphors that we use. Are you a tree, she asks, or are you a potted plant?By Plough

Greta Gaffin asks if humans should return to nature, and looks to the lives of two saints who taught us to make peace with it instead.By Plough

David McBride introduces his new translation of The Leper of Abercuawg, a thousand-year-old Welsh poem in which an outcast seeks comfort in the wild.By Plough

Joy Clarkson discusses her new book, and the importance of metaphor. Why are metaphors important? How can they help us live well – and how can they go wrong? Why should we not think of ourselves as computers? And what does all this mean for our language about God? In the discussion, Joy and Susannah range widely through topics including apophatic t…

William Thomas Okie says plants can talk; but is anyone listening?By Plough

Colin Boller explains how regenerative agriculture helps farmers care for the land and pay the bills.By Plough

Clare Coffey gives a defense of the dandelion, the plant that always comes back.By Plough

Matthew Scarince and Sebastian Milbank discuss Tolkien and technology. Susannah chimes in. Is J. R. R. Tolkien anti-technology? What is the relationship between magic and technology in the world of the Lord of the Rings, and in ours? What do the elves have to do with that? What can we tell by looking at the rings, the palantíri, the silmarils? Shou…

Daniel J. D. Stulac, a newcomer to Saskatchewan, searches for the Old Testament promise.By Plough

Caroline Moore has studied moths since she was a child. She writes how they showcase nature’s richness and vulnerability.By Plough

Alastair Roberts revisits the resurrection stories of the Old Testament. Jesus expected his followers to know that he was going to have to die and would then be resurrected – but, famously, they didn’t figure it out until it happened. What were Jewish expectations of resurrection, and where is the idea found in the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible? Al…

Southern Baptist preacher Clarence Jordan (1912-1969) argued that true Christian fellowship as practiced by the early church demands sharing of material possessions, distribution of those goods, and racial equality.By Plough

Ross Douthat discusses why what is natural is not a guide to what is good. The idea that the natural world is to be worshiped can take many forms. Douthat and Peter Mommsen and Susannah Black Roberts discuss these forms, ranging from Wordsworthian spiritual experiences in a national park, to worshiping ancestral or local gods, to civic religions of…

Heinrich Arnold writes that in the Bruderhof, as in any society, children flourish when family, school, and community align.By Plough

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and Alexander Raikin discuss euthanasia and eugenics. What has happened in the law and society in Canada since 2016 such that MAID has exploded, becoming one of the most common causes of death there? What is the relationship of national healthcare to this expansion? Alexander Raikin brings in a review of the statistics ove…

Leah Libresco Sargeant writes about Grace Russo and her philosophy of mending clothes with beauty.By Plough

Zena Hitz on our time, its value, and how we might spend it if we had more of it.By Plough

Stephanie Saldaña writes that though the members of her church have been scattered by war, the church lives on.By Plough

Adam Nicolson has been rehabilitating his farm in Sussex for many years now, and he discusses the difficulties and rewards of this, and the piece that he wrote about it for Plough’s issue on repair. They go on to discuss the topics of some of Nicolson’s books: Sissinghurst, the farm and garden owned by Nicolson’s grandmother, Vita Sackville-West; H…

Norman Wirzba writes that our homes and workplaces should nurture and celebrate life.By Plough

Adam Nicolson tells of reversing the destructive agricultural damage done to his farm in the past.By Plough

Christian Wiman writes that the “if” is what any honest faith looks like in this life.By Plough

Zohar Atkins discusses the real meaning of tikkun olam. Susannah and Zohar discuss the contemporary progressive vision of this idea, which means (or does it?) “to repair the world.” Where did that contemporary interpretation come from? And what was the original meaning? They go through the Rabbinic concept of Tikkun as equity, as a kind of emergenc…

Carlo Gébler writes that we should try to repair the lives of others, even if things in our own lives seem broken.By Plough

Words written by Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farm, a pacifist interracial Christian community in Georgia, taken from a Plough book, The Inconvenient Gospel.By Plough

Kurt Armstrong writes that not everyone can build skyscrapers; someone has to address that damp spot on your kitchen ceiling.By Plough

Matthew Sitman and Sohrab Ahmari discuss friendship across political divides. Both men have made their careers in political media and have made significant changes in their politics over the course of their lives – in Sohrab’s case, very publicly. These changes have affected some friendships and have left others intact. Sohrab and Matt and Susannah…

Benjamin Crosby, a young minister in a declining church, looks for reasons to hope.By Plough

In a short story by Narine Abgaryan, survivors of war in 1990s Armenia find a reason to go on living.By Plough

Peter Mommsen writes that modern life depends on the habit of discarding things. What if we fixed them instead?By Plough

Saharawi Mine Action Team members remove mines and plant trees in the Algerian Desert of Western Sahara.By Plough

Rowan Williams reminds us that in the birth of Christ, God comes to restore and set free every person and all creation.By Plough

Leah Libresco Sargeant discusses conflict as a part of debate and the activities of the Braver Angels Debates and Discourse program.By Plough

Antoine E. Davis and Aaron Edward Olson, both inmates, took risks to withstand the racism within the prison.By Plough

Kathleen A. Mulhern considers how we should spend our time in the evenings. We start the day intentionally and prayerfully, but all bets are off after five o’clock p.m.By Plough

Sarah Clarkson says that when mental illness struck, her mind became her enemy. She shares her struggle to love it again.By Plough

Susannah Black Roberts speaks with Stephanie Summers about how political opponents can disagree well. Stephanie is the head of the Center for Public Justice (CJP), a DC-based group that works with faith organizations and other organizations, as well as with Congress, to help craft a public culture and political culture that supports the Kuyperian i…

In an interview, Archbishop Angalelos speaks about the Coptic Christians’ legacy of forgiving their enemies and those who persecute them.By Plough

Staughton Lynd and other radical visionaries experiment with communal living in the hills of Georgia.By Plough

The hosts speak with Sohrab Ahmari about how private power crushed American liberty. Sohrab’s new book, Tyranny, Inc., is a thoroughly reported look at the way that private economic power, especially the conditions of employment, has taken away workers’ abilities to have agency over their own lives. How did we get here, and what can we do about it?…

Mary Townsend explores the concept of loving sinners, hating sins, and what our response as Christians should be.By Plough

Rachel Cañon Naffziger tells the story of Egor Redin, a Baptist lawyer from Russia who spoke out against the war.By Plough

Susannah speaks with Clare Stober and Marianne Wright about living without money. Clare didn’t grow up in the Bruderhof – she made the decision to join when she was in her early thirties, after a successful career. She describes her spiritual quest, and the doubts and worries that came with considering joining – and the freedom that she has felt si…

Benjamin Crosby asks if we can afford to love our enemies in an unforgiving society?By Plough

Timothy J. Keiderling reflects from Israel on the teachings of Jesus and who are the enemies we should love.By Plough

Peter and Susannah talk with Dr. William Cavanaugh about his book Being Consumed. What is the nature of the consumer economy? That’s what this short book seeks to explore. William Cavanaugh discusses his argument with the hosts, asking questions such as: When is a market free? Is our problem that we are too attached to consumer products? Should we …

Robert Lockridge and his family share their homegrown food with the people who live in their urban neighborhood, whether or not they can afford it.By Plough

Phil Christman has a Tradcath, an exvangelical influencer, a mainliner, and a conservative megachurch pastor star in this retelling of Luke 10:30–37.By Plough

Tara Isabella Burton comes on the pod to ask, How did we become a world of self-makers? Susannah, Pete and Tara discuss her new book, Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians. What were the intellectual and imaginative and social currents that led us from a world where the self was something given or discovered to one in …

Maria Weiss finds pain and friendship in the enforced community of outcasts at a Paraguayan leper colony.By Plough