Featured

Interior of an abandoned ornate chapel with peeling paint, wooden pews, and religious murals.
It’s Not All Good, Man
Churches are in decline. How should Christians respond?
Karen Kilby
Essay
Black and white photo of six workers building a railroad track in snowy conditions.
How Solzhenitsyn Found Faith
As a prisoner in the gulag, the great Russian author discovered a hard truth about good and evil.
Gary Saul Morson
Essay
Detailed black and white architectural drawing of a grand classical building with columns, stairs, and figures.
The Critique of Religion
Marx called Christianity the opium of the people. What if it isn’t the religion he thought it was?
King-Ho Leung
Essay
Two women sitting close with their arms around each other, one wearing a black hijab and the other a white scarf.
Grieving for Peace in Israel and Palestine
Israelis and Palestinians who lost family band together to promote an end to the violence.
Chris Zimmerman
Report
Close-up of a white reindeer with velvety antlers against a snowy, blurred background.
Short Story: Sieidi
In all the years since, I’ve never regretted what we did.
Francis Young
Fiction
Historic cityscape painting with green fields, grazing cows, trees, and cathedral spires in the distance.

The Moral Beauty of Middlemarch

George Eliot’s masterpiece teaches us to live faithfully a hidden life.
George Scialabba
Essay

Insights

Illustration of a large, spiral tower resembling the Tower of Babel against a dark mountainous background.
The Gods of Modernity
Max Weber claimed today’s world is disenchanted. Actually, it’s teeming with new enchantments.
Galen Watts
Essay
People standing close with arms around each other, in a supportive group gathering indoors.
The Asbury Outpouring
Asbury University’s president talks about the ongoing effects of the student spiritual revival in 2023.
Timothy J Keiderling
Report
Statue of Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus, both dressed in gold with blue accents.
Mother Mary in Cuba
After decades of Communist suppression of religion, I found marks of faith in my mother’s hometown.
Margarita Mooney Clayton
Personal History
Silhouettes of people walking and standing by the water at sunset with their elongated shadows on the ground.
Knowing What Time It Is
What will our politics look like after Christianity? A tour of the post-religious right.
John Ehrett
Essay
Stylized artwork of five figures with boats and seagulls above them on an orange background.
The Church in China Isn’t What You Think
A scholar of Chinese Christianity dispels some common myths.
Easten Law
Interview
Painting of twisted bare tree branches with a colorful landscape of fields and hills in the background.
The Fight Against Mammon

In the febrile atmosphere of the Weimar Republic, Plough’s founding editor sets Jesus’ gospel against the gods of wealth and war.

Eberhard Arnold
Essay
Historical portrait of a man in robes releasing colorful flames from his mouth against a background of old text and sketches.
Blaise Pascal’s Night of Fire
What’s the difference between a cultural Christian and an actual believer? The great French philosopher's conversion shows us how to distinguish.
Graham Tomlin
Essay

Web Exclusives

Smiling man in a wheelchair wearing a navy jacket and cap, surrounded by marathon participants.
Elegy for Sammy Basso
The life of a young man with a rare genetic condition stretches our understanding of what it means to be human.
Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
Black and white photo of two elderly people facing a beach, one in wheelchair, one on bench.
Everyone Is Eventually a Burden
As laws permitting medically assisted death advance, how will we learn to accept diminishment rather than kill ourselves?
Matthew Burdette
Essay
People running on a road at sunset during an outdoor event with cars and spectators nearby.

Secrets of the Vanishing Church

What’s behind the numbers of declining faith participation?

Ryan Burge
Lyman Stone
Abstract painting of three people sitting around a table, one in red, one in yellow, one in dark clothes.

Thirteen False and Debilitating Ideas

Over fifty years ago, two dozen theologians met in Hartford and identified thirteen heresies threatening the church. You may find them familiar.

Nathaniel Peters

Arts & Letters

Watercolor illustration of a person under apple trees with text about youth and a green grass house.
Poetry Comic: Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill”
A graphic artist interprets the Welsh poet’s masterpiece about nature, time, and lost youth.
Julian Peters
Comic
Brown horse sculpture with white dripping paint effect on its body against a gray background.
A Tang Dynasty Ceramic Horse
It stands on all four hooves, just stopped / as if before a cliffside topped / with waving grasses like its mane.
Benjamin P. Myers
Poem
Surreal night scene with pear trees silhouetted against a glowing full moon and dark blue abstract sky.
Pear Trees in Winter
To see the orchard stand undressed and cold, / shivering before the blue mountain, trunks dark
Benjamin P. Myers
Poem
Oil painting of a dark tree with two smaller trees on a yellow-brown field under a partly cloudy blue sky.
Afterwords
High summer throbs and buzzes like a light / bulb burning out, the fields all full of wings.
Benjamin P. Myers
Poem