Featured

Reviving the Village
By returning to the land, African Christians seek to heal the ravages of ecological and ethnic violence.
Emmanuel Katongole
Essay
Is There a Right to Have Children?
The fertility industry pushes IVF as an answer to the pain of childlessness. But at what cost?
Matthew Lee Anderson
Essay
The Stranger in My House
We adopted children with trauma in their past. It didn’t go as expected.
Wendy Kiyomi
Essay
Fear of a Human Planet
Will having children hasten a climate apocalypse? Or will humanity end because we stop having children?
Louise Perry
Viewpoints
The Sins of the Fathers
Our ancestors’ guilt can affect the present generation. The Hebrew prophets show a way out.
Helmuth Eiwen
Essay
Gazapillo
After the young folk moved away, the Three Kings stopped visiting the village. Or did they?
Óscar Esquivias
Fiction

Insights

Soldier of Peace
I asked the Bruderhof’s oldest member, a World War II veteran, about how to pass on a legacy.
Maureen Swinger
Essay
My Father Left Me Paperclip
What kind of inheritance can an illegitimate son expect?
Terence Sweeney
Personal History
Decoding the Bible’s Begats
We moderns tend to think genealogy shouldn’t matter. Scripture disagrees.
Alastair Roberts
Essay
The Name of My Forty-Sixth-Great-Grandfather
My children are growing up far from our ancestral village in South Korea. An ancient genealogical book connects them back.
Jaehyoung Jeong
Essay
Somewhere in Chessington
My hometown debunks the idea that family-friendly neighborhoods are a thing of the past.
Rhys Laverty
Essay
Singing the Law
Chanting the Torah joins past generations to generations yet unborn.
J L Wall
Essay
Uncle Albert
An Irish-Catholic family’s story of crime and forgiveness, finally told.
Springs Toledo
Essay

Web Exclusives

A Legacy of Survival
For my grandmother, the struggle to survive was rooted in faith.
Kat Armas
Daughter of Forgottonia
In a left-behind corner of Illinois, Edna Eberlin made her farm a home for a sprawling multigenerational family. It was never easy.
Liz Schleicher
Book Tour: On Being a Good Ancestor
Phil Christman reviews “Survival of the Richest” by Douglas Rushkoff, “The Good Ancestor” by Roman Krznaric, and “What We Owe the Future” by William MacAskill.
Phil Christman
Giving Your Children Your Words
With their first word, children enter the world of relationships and blessings.
Sally Clarkson
Clay Clarkson
Ten Theses on Intergen­erational Stewardship
Our family has been stewards of land for centuries. Here are lessons we’ve learned about how to care for it sustainably.
Prince Michael zu Salm-Salm
Inheriting Mental Illness
A theologian and mental health nurse talks with Plough about discipleship and generational trauma.
John Swinton
Joy Marie Clarkson

Arts & Letters

Poem: “The Revenant”
“That winter when awareness flies away / and I keep losing keys and cat and mind…”
Aaron Poochigian
Poetry
Poem: “L’esthétique de la Ville”
“I love when nature recreates the urban. / I love this garden on a fire escape…”
Aaron Poochigian
Poetry
Poem: “When You Pursue Me, World”
In this new English translation, a seventeenth-century Mexican poet and nun prizes learning over luxuries.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Rhina P. Espaillat
Poetry
Editors’ Picks: God Loves the Autistic Mind
We need books like Matthew Schneider’s God Loves the Autistic Mind because, too often, autistic people of faith have been led to feel the opposite.
Boze Herrington
Editors’ Picks
Editors’ Picks: Life between the Tides
Nicholson takes a deep dive into shallow waters, exploring tidal pools through the lenses of history, marine biology, philosophy, myth, and geology.
Annelise Jolley
Editors’ Picks
Editors’ Picks: Damnation Spring
Davidson’s debut novel asks what it means to care for one’s family, one’s neighbors, and the natural world – when those priorities collide.
Tsh Oxenreider
Editors’ Picks
The Chocolate Ice Cream
In two vignettes, a mother delights in her son’s joy and remembers her own childhood happiness.
Clarice Lispector
Reading
Desiring Silence
Ancient believers went to the desert seeking God in the stillness of open spaces.
Shira Telushkin
Reviews