Plough Quarterly No. 25 - Solidarity
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Whatever else they do, pandemics show us we are not alone. Covid-19 is proof that, yes, there is such a thing as society; the disease has spread precisely because we aren't autonomous individuals disconnected from each other, but rather all belong to one great body of humanity. The pain inflicted by the pandemic is far from equally distributed. Yet it reveals ever more clearly how much we all depend on one another, and how urgently necessary it is for us to bear one another's burdens.
It's a good time, then, to talk about solidarity. The more so because it's a theme that's also raised by this year's other major development, the international protests for racial justice following George Floyd's death. The protests, too, raised the question of solidarity in guilt, even guilt across generations. By taking up our common guilt with all humanity, we come into solidarity with the one who bears it and redeems it all. In Christ, sins are forgiven, guilt abolished, and a new way of living together becomes possible. This solidarity in forgiveness gives rise to a life of love.
This issue of Plough explores what solidarity means, and what it looks like to live it out today, whether in Uganda, Bolivia, or South Korea, in an urban church, a Bruderhof, or a convent.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
One of the most admired religious thinkers of our time, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is the award-winning author of more than two dozen books, is heard regularly on the BBC, and has received many international awards and honorary degrees from universities around the world. From 1991 to 2013 he served as chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. He was made a Life Peer and took his seat in the House of Lords in October 2009.
More by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Wesley Hill
Wesley Hill (PhD, Durham University, UK) is assistant professor of biblical studies at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality (Zondervan, 2010), Paul and the Trinity?: Persons, Relations, and the Pauline Letters? (Eerdmans, 2015), and Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian (Brazos, 2015). He is on the editorial board for Christianity Today and writes regularly for that magazine as well as for Books & Culture, First Things, and other publications.
More by Wesley Hill
Karen Swallow Prior
Karen Swallow Prior (PhD, SUNY Buffalo) is the 2025-26 Karlson Scholar at Bethel Seminary. She is the author of You Have a Calling; The Evangelical Imagination; On Reading Well; Fierce Convictions; and Booked. She is coeditor of Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course in Contemporary Issues and has contributed to numerous other books. Prior is a frequent speaker, a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum, a contributing writer at The Dispatch, a research fellow for Comment, and a monthly columnist at Religion News Service.
More by Karen Swallow Prior
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