Summer/Fall 2026
Volume XLI, Number 1
In This Issue
Heeding the call to unity by Jamie Sladkey Meehan
When I was a kid I was certain that I was going to be one of two things when I grew up. I was either going to be a pontoon pilot, because I liked boats and planes, or a pediatric cardiologist, because I liked kids and I thought that hearts were cool.
“I and my people are in the wrong!” by Michael Poindexter
Forty years ago this past January the space shuttle Challenger was launched from Kennedy Space Center. The NASA mission included a 38-year-old, New Hampshire high school social studies teacher named Christa McAuliffe.
Partisanship and confession by Kaleb Nyquist
In the first part of this essay, I articulated why good partisanship is an important ethic missing from our Pietist political imagination, which has historically been non-partisan or even, at times, anti-partisan. I then explored how some of the hang-ups we have with partisanship are similar to or shaped by the same hang-ups we have with confession. Now, I sketch out a framework of “partisan confession” to help cultivate an ethic of good partisanship that remains rooted in our tradition.
Pietist Pilgrim’s Progress by Greg Asimakoupoulos
“How goes it with my walk?” you ask / with honest ears to listen / without a predetermined box to check. / And I reply…
Please pass the bread by Bonnie Sparrman
Cranberry Pecan Peasant Bread
When life experience gives birth to song by Paul Hoffman
Most everyone who knows the beloved hymn “It Is Well with My Soul” also knows the tragic story of its text. Horatio Spafford wrote the text in 1873 after the death of his four daughters in a shipwreck at sea.
USAID and the Covenant church’s mission by Mark Erickson
As I eased into retirement, I chose to occupy my time with, among other activities, volunteering, working part-time, being a tourist, visiting “shut-ins,” and crafting special projects. Regarding the latter, I initially planned to immerse myself in archival boxes in the basement of Brandel Library on the campus of North Park University to focus on the Covenant denomination’s mission field in Congo, particularly the period surrounding the 1960 assassination of the democratically-elected Congolese President, Patrice Lumumba, as well as the 1964 murder of Covenant medical missionary, Paul Carlson. I had known that Carlson had been shot and killed after he followed God’s calling, and my eyes watered as I sat in the Covenant’s archives and actually held his New Testament with shrapnel holes.
I am a sports fan, take me to the soccer by Eric Nelson
I walked into Seattle Stadium (which locals usually know as “Lumen Field”) as a neutral party, on a sunny Seattle day in June, when the world had tuned in to watch. I was hoping for a good game between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Qatar in the opening round of the 2026 World Cup, and to bear witness to the biggest sports event in the world showing up in my city.
Did the wind die? Without a wind can there be a second wind? There are frequent “breaking wind” events, I’m confident.