Clare Coffey

What is our place in nature? Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have has exercised unprecedented dominance over nature, with consequences that are now catching up with us. Many have pointed to Christianity as a culprit. Yet Christianity actually teaches that our relationship to nature should not be one of contempt or disassociation. Rather, according to ancient church tradition, nature is a book to be read, revealing truths about its creator and ours. At a time when many moderns are unsure of what difference, if any, marks us out from other living beings on our planet, and of what our place in the natural world ought to be, what might nature itself tell us about how to live within it? On this theme:Peter Mommsen asks if humans should live by nature’s laws. Colin Boller interviews farmers successfully shifting to regenerative agriculture. Caroline Moore introduces some of Britain’s amazing moths. Daniel Stulac wonders what the Promised Land means in Saskatchewan. Clare Coffey defends dandelions in lawns. Rhys Laverty reports on man’s battle with the sea at the Alderney breakwater. William Thomas Okie explores the old idea that plants reveal their uses. Greta Gaffin looks at our relationship to wolves, and Saint Francis’s. Norann Voll remembers lambing with her father. Tim Maendel finds peace by hunting. Erik Varden asks if the Christian teaching on chastity is unnatural. David McBride translates “The Leper of Abercuawg,” an old Welsh poem. Maureen Swinger watches meteor showers. Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to apply their faith to the challenges we face. Each issue includes in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art.

Main Description: This issue opens with the story of Melania and her real estate-magnate husband, who decide to divest themselves of their entire wealth. These early Christians, who sold off their many estates and freed eight thousand slaves, were only exceptional in the amount they gave away. Jesus, after all, had advised a rich man, “Go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor.” And he emphatically warned that you cannot serve two masters: you cannot serve God and money. What does that mean for Christians today, in a society and economy premised on the accumulation of capital? How can we resist and subvert the power of money? On this theme: - Clare Coffey looks at how multilevel marketing commodifies friendship. - Sharon Rose Christner describes what happens when a Vatican palace becomes a homeless shelter. - Alastair Roberts writes in praise of Mary of Bethany’s extravagant love. - A photojournalist asks what’s left of the Cuban Revolution seventy years after it began. - Jack Bell revisits William Cobbett’s spirited defense of the vanishing British commons. - Maria Weiss finds pain and friendship in the forced community of a leper colony. - Maureen Swinger reveals the joys and pitfalls of owning twenty-two cars (collectively). - Robert Lockridge describes what he’s learned running a pay-as-you-can café. Also in the issue: - The winning poems in the 2023 Rhina Espaillat Poetry Award contest - An excerpt from Eugene Vodolazkin’s new novel, A History of the Island - Reviews of Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s Thin Places, Lydia Millet’s Dinosaurs, and Jennifer Banks’s Natality - Readings on Christianity and money from Eberhard Arnold, Peter Riedemann, Nicolai Berdyaev, Basil of Caesarea, Maria Skobtsova, C. S. Lewis, and Dorothy Day Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to apply their faith to the challenges we face. Each issue includes in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art.

The future of humanity is urban. It might seem a bad move for a magazine named after a farm tool to bring out an issue on cities. Especially if that magazine is published by an Anabaptist community that originated in a back-to-the-land movement and still has the whiff of hayfield and woodlot to it. Why not stick to what you’re good at? Why jump lanes? Because the future of humanity, pretty clearly, is urban. Urbanization is arguably the biggest change of habitat our species has ever undergone. For anyone who cares about the common good of humanity, then, cities need to matter. The modern city is an electrifying concentration of creativity, energy, and cultural dynamism. It’s also still the “cauldron of unholy loves” that Saint Augustine discovered in Carthage one and a half millennia ago. It’s the place where the cruelties of mammon, the hubris of power, and the perversions of lust manifest themselves most crassly. But cities have also given birth to culture and community and to remarkable movements of revival and renewal. In this issue, visit: - Belfast with Jenny McCartney - New York City with James Macklin - Medellín with Adriano Cirino - Pittsburgh with Brandon McGinley - Guatemala City with José Corpas - Philadelphia with Clare Coffey - Chicago with John Thornton Jr. - Paris with Jason Landsel You’ll also find: - Insights on cities from Jane Jacobs, Eberhard Arnold, Augustine, and Philip Britts - reviews of books by Jonathan Foiles, Bethany McKinney Fox, J. Malcolm Garcia, Tatiana Schlossberg, Tim Gautreaux, Philip Bess, and Frederic Morton - art by Gail Brodholt, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Ben Ibebe, Brian Peterson, Chota, Raphael, Gertrude Hermes, Valentino Belloni, Tony Taj, and Aristarkh Lentulov Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.