Another Life with Joy Marie Clarkson

“When I went back to Idaho, I connected with more than just the land.” An excerpt from Gracy Olmstead’s Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind.

Christian Wiman reads the parable of Jesus writing in the sand as poetry, and unpacks poetry of doubt and faith by Yehuda Amichai, Kay Ryan, and Les Murray.

Mary Harrington on what’s for sale on online dating sites.

In The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker says it’s in our nature to fear death – and to transcend that fear of death through faith.

Peter and Susannah address listener questions. First, what do we make of natural evil? Things like parasites seem to call into question the idea of nature as designed by a loving God. What’s the relationship of the fall of man to the theodicy of cicada-killing wasps? Then they turn to the question of the nature of online worlds. Can we talk coherently about the nature of Twitter, say? What does th...

Pete and Susannah speak with Gracy Olmstead about her new book Uprooted. In this age of unrootedness, what does it mean to have a home – to be from somewhere? Gracy’s book talks about her own story: her family’s farm in Idaho, and what it means to have that be an important part of her life, even though she’s moved away. Can she go back to the land her ancestors farmed? Gracy’s work has been fundam...

Pete and Susannah discuss Pater Edmund Waldstein’s piece “Lords of Nature.” What does it mean to respect the nature of human beings, including the integrity of their bodies? If we can reshape our own bodies and customize our children using new genetic technologies – should we? What does it look like to honor human nature rather than seek to dominate it? Then, the hosts speak with John Kempf about...

Pete and Susannah discuss Kelsey Osgood’s piece on Ernest Becker’s Denial of Death. How did Becker, as a Jew struggling through secularism, face the fact of our slavery to the fear of death - and how did his refusal of the cold comforts of distraction open the way for real meaning to emerge? Then, the hosts speak with friend of the pod Sohrab Ahmari, about his recent book The Unbroken Thread: Disc...

Peter and Susannah talk about Mary Harrington’s piece on the business of online dating. What happens when butchering is removed from the marketplace? And what are we doing when we swipe right on someone, treating him or her as a commodity which might or might not pass muster? Then they talk with Plough contributing editor Leah Libresco Sargeant about her piece “Let the Body Testify.” Are we disemb...

Can nature teach us how to live, or is the universe random and meaningless? In the first episode of The PloughCast’s new 6-part series about nature and creatures, Susannah quizzes Peter about his dog Hektor, who plays a starring role in Peter’s Plough editorial “The Book of Creatures.” They discuss the evolution of dogs, especially the way dogs’ faces have evolved to hack into human emotions of te...

Leah Libresco Sargeant offers a feminist critique of how modern society pushes women to change their bodies, in an essay that also covers anorexia, surrogacy, gender bias in medicine, and gender dysmorphia.

Springs Toledo on his defeat to and friendship with the boxer Stonewall Strickland.

Eighteen years among Somali Muslims in the Horn of Africa have taught an American Christian that Islam’s five pillars apply to Christianity as well. In this excerpt from a new Plough book, Pillars, she describes what she has learned about one of these five pillars, prayer.

Can it ever be a Christian’s duty to kill? For Plough’s founding editor Eberhard Arnold, this question goes to the core of the meaning of Christianity, and of human life. His seven theses on the Biblical basis of pacifism were written in Germany, during dangerous years.

“The love of the peacemaker is a love that has force, that will not accept the injustices of the status quo.” Anthony Barr on love and justice through the lens of James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Gracy Olmstead on welcoming the baby she did not want.

Patrick Tomassi discusses the definition of violence with Portland’s Antifa movement, the local Proud Boys, and some of the people caught in between.

This episode included an Anabaptist and an Anglican in conversation as they attempted to address listener questions include the following: I'm convinced that Christians should not use lethal violence. Does scripture outline what those who don't follow Jesus, acting on behalf of the state, should or shouldn't do with regard to levels of violence to restrain evil? How do we read the violence in the...

Felix Manz was the first martyr of the Radical Reformation, drowned by his fellow Christians for performing adult baptisms. His story is a story of a world on fire with commitment to Christ, with friends who became enemies wrestling over nonviolence, justice for the poor, and the meaning of the gospel. Pete and Susannah discuss what his time has to say to ours. Then, they catch up with Rachel Pieh...

This time last year, Plough contributing editor Gracy Olmstead, unexpectedly, found that she was pregnant. With two toddler daughters and the Covid pandemic picking up steam, what does it take to welcome a child you did not plan for – or even want? What does radical hospitality look like, and how do the demands of carrying a child open our hearts? Pete and Susannah discuss Gracy’s piece exploring...

An excerpt from Scott Beauchamp’s memoir of his time in the military, Did You Kill Anyone? highlights what it was that he found in his service: meaning, the sense of a non-trivial life, a life that was not just about his own curated experience. Meanwhile, Scott Button’s account of his own grandfather’s commitment to pacifism, and the adventures on which his conscientious objection sent him reminds...

In 1920, Eberhard Arnold founded both the Bruderhof and the magazine and publishing house that are now called Plough. From the beginning, Christian nonviolence was a core part of his understanding of what it was to be a Christian and a witness to the Gospel. But this peaceful living was in no way passive, safe, or milquetoast. Learn more about Eberhard Arnold’s understanding of what he was up to....

This time last year, almost everyone was convinced that, here in the USA, we don’t do political violence: we solve our political problems without blood in the street. But since then, on both left and right, “it’s not real violence if the good guys are doing it” has become a common argument. How did this happen, is it wrong to see parallels between the BLM-related riots and the Capitol riot on Janu...

For American Muslims, embracing their role as a creative minority may prove their greatest source of strength, allowing them to carve out a small space of their own in a secular world.

Maria Hengeveld reports on the legal challenges to Unilever surrounding an attack on its Kenyan workers, and the implications for corporate social responsibility or lack thereof.