Spring 2025 | Is Christianity Losing its Religion?

Is American Christianity losing its salt and light? Warning signs are flashing left and right: a public spirit of cruelty, an out-of-touch institutional ethos, the great harm of clergy abuses. Reflections invited YDS-related scholars and ministers to speak to the moment and declare their own reasons for Christian faith. The stakes are high. These writers make contemporary sense of Jesus’ message, finding moral clarity and fire, rejecting disillusion or nostalgia. As they discover, the faith is always rising again. “God’s love has the first and the final word,” writes Shannon Craigo-Snell ‘95 M.Div., ‘02 Ph.D., “and we are invited to be part of it in our time and place.”
Cover image by Cody Otto/Unsplash

Reflections

From the Dean's Desk

By Gregory E. Sterling, Dean of Yale Divinity School

In February 1991, the alternative rock band R.E.M. released the song “Losing My Religion.” The song was a major hit in both its recorded form and in its video version—by now the video has more than a billion views on YouTube. The song is about unrequited love with a refrain that still rings in my ears:

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Contents

shadow of a cross

A (Very Specific and Quite Personal) Case for Christianity

By Teresa Berger

A case for Christianity comes down to belief in a Triune God and an abiding sense of those who’ve come before, especially believers who’ve stood up for the faith against hellish odds.

geometric design

Grateful for a Savior Who Declares: We are Beloved

By Shelley D. Best ’00 M.Div.

Real faith runs deeper than quoting scripture or wearing a crucifix. It is not blind allegiance or nostalgia but an act of courage and clarity. And its work today is not done.

blurred "JESUS" spelled out in lights

“I See Jesus”: Culture Wars and Biblical Interpretation

By Paul Fleck ’11 M.Div.

There’s the careful discipline known as biblical exegesis, and then there’s eisegesis, the temptation to claim the text for one’s own personal ideology. Reading First Corinthians 13 again should reset everybody’s perspective.

two stained-glass cross sun catchers

Deconstructing Faith, and Reconstructing It

By Sandra L. Fischer ’12 M.Div.

A church’s local halo effect—its service-oriented involvement in small town or big city—stems from a congregation’s own lively convictions about the story of Jesus. A stronger town-church relationship could renew both.

hand over water

“Are You Sure You Want to Become a Christian?”

By Will Mebane ’06 M.Div.

The vows of baptism carry the expectation that believers will follow Jesus in his actual teachings, which include a respect for the dignity of every human being. That’s not “preaching politics”—that’s the New Testament.

a crowd indoors

The Wind is Saying, Befriend the Forgotten

By Andrew McMillan ’80 M.Div.

The “sneaky love of God” makes for some surprising adventures in the life of a minister whose vocation was has been renewed by a “gold-rush fever for the beauty of Christ in the eyes of the forgotten people.”

flower arrangement on a dinner table

An Unchurched Path to a New Church Beginning

By Vincent Wei-Cheng Lin ’24 S.T.M.

A Christian vision is taking hold that transforms a basic dinner gathering into an occasion of deep connection and thanksgiving. A common meal becomes an uncommon church.  

manuscript with stained glass superimposition

Reclaiming Evangelical Identity

By Craig Robinson

The word evangelical need not be confined to current-day theo-politics. It’s time to reclaim it as a term for spreading the good news of biblical values that center on love of God and neighbor.

rainbow over wave

Meds, MRIs, Miracles: A Hospice Chaplain Rereads Genesis

By Aaron Klink ’05 M.Div.

Physical struggles cannot diminish the biblical insight that the body is God’s good creation and sustained by God’s spirit. Bodies won’t be reduced to scientific biology alone.

Letty Russell

Staying in Church by Walking with Visionaries

By Shannon Craigo-Snell ’95 M.Div., ’02 Ph.D.

In dispirited times, theological visionaries arise to replenish the Christian message. This moment stands poised to rediscover Letty Russell, Shawn Copeland, Delores Williams, and Howard Thurman.

light shining through a window

Inexplicable Grace: Why I’m Still Part of the Church

By S. Slade Hogan ’22 S.T.M.

In the future, people will look to Christian belief for an experience of eternal resonance—a personal space for encountering God yet in proximity to others and their needs.

mosaic of Jesus's face

The Courage to Preach Christianity 101

By Roger Ferlo ’79 Ph.D.

Congregations are among the few places left in the U.S. where people can renew contact with a vision of truth incarnated in liturgy, silence, food, prayer, and in the courage to face Jesus’ teachings.

artwork of flowers

Don’t Water Fake Plants

By Karis T. Slattery ’20 M.Div.

The world is ready for a Christianity that asks questions, seeks light, rests in darkness, stays rooted in justice, and invites individual spiritual growth.

abstract painting

A World Stubbornly in the Grip of Goodness

By Ian Barclay ’24 M.A.R.

Is it possible to be a Christian without settling the question of belief in God? Gratitude, attention, and trust make it possible to “live our way into the answer” in this world where the natural and spiritual daily intersect.

trees seen from below

Shrugging Off Uncertainties, Ready for the Next Sacred Moment

By Caroline Blosser ’24 M.Div.

Sometimes a shrugging “I don’t know” is a prelude to an astonishing holy encounter. It might happen in church, in the woods, or among thousands of hunger people. Just ask Jesus’ disciples. 

church roof against sky with clouds

From the Editor: Altar Call

By Ray Waddle

An unexpected summons to the altar on a Sunday morning stirs a reckoning about being Christian at a time when the word has become for many a spiritual turn-off.

Reflections is a publication of Yale Divinity School