Welcome to Breaking Ground

What Is Policing For, and How Do We Reform It?
To rebuild the public realm, we must reform the police; to do that, we should turn to the policing principles first set out in 1829 by Robert Peel: the “police” are just members of the public “who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”
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The Sermonizer
The Black Church
“Is there a word from the Lord?”
Catholic PREACHING
Discerning the Signs of the Times
THE Anabaptist TRADITION
A Living Witness
Reformed PREACHING
Announcing the Good News

The Awakening
The Awakening, with Walter Brueggemann and director Eliot Rausch, is part two of a six-part series produced by Bittersweet Monthly.
Podcast Episodes
Spotify
Expanding the Conversation
- After terrorists stormed the Capitol and on the eve of the inauguration, healing our divisions feels harder than ever, writes the director of the Thriving Congregations Coordination Program at Leadership Education at Duke Divinity. But thank God for hope.
Christianity Today interviews Paul Miller about the history and very present dangers of Christian nationalism. Clarifying and wise, all the way through.
- We are not all experiencing the same pandemic—not even close. Poverty is a dramatic force multiplier for nearly every disruption to life caused by COVID-19, and this gut-wrenching New York Times piece on East Cleveland illustrates how.
- Dante Stewart probes perennial inconsistencies: "If they invaded the U.S. Capitol with Confederate flags, a noose, and other symbols of American hatred and were simply escorted out of the building, what does that say about a country that allows it?"
- "Our society is grappling with a soul-sickness that is ultimately an infection of our imagination. An election may address symptoms, but how do we treat the underlying disease? How to heal the imagination? Perhaps this is what the arts are for," writes James K.A. Smith.
If the Black Death caused the Renaissance, will COVID-19 also create a golden age? Historian Ada Palmer takes up this question by looking backwards, correcting popular assumptions around the storied glory of the Renaissance period and the comparative darkness of the Middle Ages.