The Archive

Every essay.

Patrick MillerChurchCulture WarEvangelism

Best of 2024: What Happened When My Church Encountered Negative World

Christian love and showing grace to our enemies isn't a 'strategy' that can go out of date. It's simply what biblical fidelity requires.

Jake Meador

Best of Mere Orthodoxy, 2024

Here is the best work we published at Mere Orthodoxy in 2024.

Seth TrouttGenderFormation

Best of 2024: Scripts for Healthy Masculinity

One helpful way of discussing good masculinity is to consider the specific roles that men occupy as they pass through life.

Rachel WelcherSexuality

Best of 2024: Chastity as Worship

Rightly understood, chastity is a virtue practiced by the celibate and married alike—a sharply different idea than that promulgated by purity culture.

Jake Meador

2024 Eliot Awards and Observations on the State of Print Media

It's time to honor another year of excellent journalistic writing with this year's 'Eliot Awards.'

Charles JacobTheologyFormation

Pain at Christmas

The first Christmas was not without pain, which means that sometimes it will come with pain for us too as we wait the completion of God's redemptive work.

Bruce ClarkFormation

Grief and Gratitude at Christmas

Both the grief and gratitude that can accompany Christmas are a reminder of the one who made all things and now comes incarnate into our world.

Jake MeadorFormation

Do We Even Want Peace on Earth?

In a day of ever-growing partisan rage and enemy hatred, I wonder if we even want Jesus to come, the one who will bring peace to earth.

Bradley BlaylockEvangelism

Evangelizing the Heart

The greatest obstacles to Christian belief for many young Americans are not primarily cognitive or intellectual, but are existential instead.

Amy MantravadiHistory/Church History

The Reformation Moment Is Our Moment

Though our moment might feel uniquely complex and chaotic, history is full of examples of similarly uncertain and tumultuous eras.

Nicholas McDonaldFilm Reviews/Hollywood

The Nightmare Before Christmas Is About Disenchantment

Tim Burton's classic 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' is best understood as a disenchantment and reenchantment story.

Nadya WilliamsCurrent Politics

The After Virtue Cabinet

Recovering the notion that 'moral turpitude' disqualifies one from public office would go some way toward restoring the integrity of our political system.