Featured

My Mother’s Hidden Radiance
For years, her mental illness kept me from seeing her beauty.
Brandon Vaidyanathan
Personal History
Artistic forest scene with tall trees in muted blue and pink tones with circular textured overlay.
Children of Terabithia
What is there of beauty in losing an unborn baby?
Caitrin Keiper
Essay
Six Ways to Resist the Machine

The technological mindset is corrupting our souls. It’s time to fight.

Paul Kingsnorth
Essay
Painting of a winding river surrounded by trees and hills in soft pastel tones.
How Does Beauty Shape the Christian Imagination?
A theologian tells the story of beauty, from Absalom’s hair to English country gardens.
Ben Quash
Essay
Silhouette of a man standing in front of a framed landscape painting on a dark wall.
Can a Painting Save You?
My mother came to Jesus through a work of art.
Sean Rubin
Essay
Black and white photo of a girl in a dress sitting barefoot inside a boat looking outward.
Luna of Tasajera
On a windswept island far from the gangs and prisons, I saw the future of El Salvador.
Philip Holsinger
Portfolio

Insights

Close-up of tree trunks and branches covered in intricate, colorful circular patterns in soft tones.
A Tree by Any Other Name
Befriending your backyard sycamore can change your relationship with the natural world.
Katelyn Beaty
Essay
Bright sunlight shining through autumn trees with orange and yellow foliage.
The Riddle of Beauty in Nature
Why the poets tell us lovely falsehoods about nature.
CS Lewis
Gregory of Nyssa
Reading
Brown and yellow bird perched on a branch with red berries against a pale sky.
The Art of the Beautiful
We are called not only to contemplate the beauty of the world, but also to express it.
Sergei Bulgakov
Iris Murdoch
Reading
Close-up of a small branch with dried, light brown leaves against a blurred grayish background.
The Paradox of Beauty
Can the beautiful be genuine, or is it only an illusion?
Pope Benedict XVI
Augustine of Hippo
Reading
Impressionist painting of a lone figure walking on a path at sunset with warm orange and yellow tones.
Beckoned by Beauty
How I stumbled into a story much bigger than my own – and found my way to the Bruderhof.
Kacey Sycamore
Personal History
Renaissance-style painting of men pulling a rope with others dancing and carrying items in a grand hall.
Icon or Idol?
Christianity has a love-hate relationship with sacred art.
Natalie Carnes
Essay
Close-up of a stone gargoyle sculpture with a pensive expression overlooking a blurred cityscape.
Those Hideous Stewards of Beauty
The gargoyles and grotesques on Notre-Dame Cathedral look down and see themselves in us.
Sergio Bermudez
Essay
Close-up of adult holding a sleeping newborn baby wrapped in a patterned blanket.
When Life Begins with Death
In Vienna, a hospital offers palliative care to babies with debilitating diagnoses.
Veronika Kabas
Essay
One Hundred Years of Gossip
The Bruderhof’s first rule was written in 1925. After a century, does it still work?
Chris Zimmerman
Essay

Web Exclusives

Black and white photo of a long, curved multi-story modernist building surrounded by trees.
Can Beauty and Justice Meet in Architecture?
An architect feels forced to choose between beauty for the rich and justice for the poor. A tuberculosis sanatorium shows him he doesn’t have to.
Kelly W. Foster
Black circular sculpture framing a cross with engraved face and text in a green wooded area.
Seeing Our Way to Humanity
Through the weeds, Frederick Franck’s sculpture park Pacem in Terris still speaks.
Coretta Thomson
Sepia-tone view through an open window showing boats on a river and a bridge in the background.
The Transcendental and the Sacramental
Five recent books show how Christians from different traditions are taking beauty seriously.
Benjamin P. Myers
Worker in blue helmet chiseling detailed stone ornament atop high building scaffolding.
Patina, Plaster, and Paint
A stonemason who repairs old English churches finds stories written in the stone.
Andrew Ziminski
Essay

Arts & Letters

Michelangelo's Last Judgment fresco with numerous muscular figures in dramatic poses on clouds.
Believing in the Last Judgment
During two papal conclaves, I sat in contemplation below Michelangelo’s masterpiece.
Christoph Cardinal Schönborn
Essay
Abstract fluid painting with swirling blue, yellow, red, and black colors creating organic patterns.
Crafting Beauty
We asked a poet, a visual artist, and a composer to tell us what role beauty plays in their work.
Steven Toussaint
Bokani
Joanna Gill
The Doers
Black and white illustration of five people: two elderly, one holding a baby, and a young boy.
Six New Poems by Wendell Berry
The great American writer addresses the thinning partition between this life and eternity.
Wendell Berry
Poetry