Editor’s Picks Archives

At its core, First Reformed is about the perennial challenge of maintaining faith and hope in the midst of doubt and despair.

Here are some books we love and think you might, too.

By turning the cameras onto his guests, Bourdain revealed to his audience a world at once vastly diverse, painfully complex, and beautifully human.

Solo: A Star Wars Story edifies not only the existing Star Wars canon, but it injects new meaning into the life and storyline of Han Solo.

Not only did these men fail to do the right thing in the moment; they failed to recognize the part they played in perpetuating their female colleague’s pain.

So as we nod our heads, bounce our shoulders, and rap with Childish Gambino in “This is America,” we need not disregard the America he and many others perceive, nor dilute it down to sensationalized art.

Scott Hutchison didn’t believe in anything beyond this life, but when I talk about light that emanates from his songs, I call it spiritual. He saw a daunting, cold world and set about doing what he could to breathe warmth into it, to strive against his pride to love unselfishly, to rage against the idea that we must accept the earth in its broken state.

Instead of viewing each other as only possessing weaknesses to be overcome, in A Quiet Place the Abbott family reminds us that our weaknesses can make each other stronger, and the strength of community is only possible because of its vulnerability.

With DAMN. and its accompanying Pulitzer, Kendrick Lamar has crossed a milestone, has set a precedent—has established a fresh tradition; hip-hop has entered a new phase.

In Roseanne, the Conners’ current state of fragmentation, political and social, is like holding a mirror up to our society. It ain’t pretty, but it’s us.

Better to live life as a heroic optimist, desiring and expecting good, flourishing, and well-being in and for others.

William Hope Hodgson’s dark works are not without glimmers of something like light.

Like in this year’s Tomb Raider, we deserve portrayals of female heroes who stand on equal ground with the best male action heroes—not tethered to objectifications of our sexual prowess.

It’s a far cry from the “redeeming blood” spoken about in scriptures, but the crimson founts in ‘Kill Bill’ are redemptive in the way they represent purifying the world of misogyny, which is still one of our undeniable dominant cultural attitudes.

In Ready Player One, humanity longs for the inner self to be unshackled from captivity to a meaningless and confining real world.

Our congregations would benefit from future pastors who’ve been influenced by women like Rachael Denhollander.