Peter and Susannah discuss Peter’s lead editorial, describing his friendship with and care for a profoundly disabled young man. They consider the simultaneous truths of the good of health, the resurrection of the body, and the full image of God in the bodies and lives of disabled people.

They discuss the phenomenon of the “Ugly laws” of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Nazi eugenics program, the limitations of communitarianism, and the way that questions of disability touch on everybody, because they are about what it means to be a human in a body.

Then they welcome Plough contributor Victoria Reynolds Farmer, a writer with cerebral palsy who discusses her Marian devotion, her recent Catholic conversion, and what that has meant for her marriage and the prospect of motherhood.

Three boys play the Three Kings who deliver gifts on the eve of Epiphany. But what will they give the poor children they pass on the street? A delightful story of strong tradition broken by the power of love.

This story is one of several Swedish legends explaining why the Christmas Rose blooms in winter. 

Santiago Ramos on his outsiderness, the double homelessness immigrants live with that points to the eternal home.

Read it here: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/social-justice/immigration/the-quest-for-home

Simeon Wiehler, university dean in Rwanda, reflects on cruelty and healing in a land scarred by genocide, drawing on philosopher Immanuel Kant; Richard Kandt, a German colonialist obsessed with craniometry; and a young student, also named Kant.

Read it here: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/politics/human-rights/three-kants-and-a-thousand-skulls

Far from home, one father transplants fig trees. Another crafts chocolates. A third creates places of welcome. Stephanie Saldaña, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Nour Al Ghraowi: three daughters give voice to each man's story, as their lives interweave.

Read it here: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/reconciliation/in-search-of-lost-fig-trees

Ashley Lucas on the story of Russell Maroon Shoatz, a former Black Panther who spent three decades in solitary confinement, and the reckoning with violence past and present.

Read it here: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/social-justice/criminal-justice/the-end-of-rage

Edwidge Danticat on the stories that anchor us, the homes we build with words that no separation can take away.

Read it here: http://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/social-justice/immigration/home-is-not-just-a-place

Russell Moore discusses the future of Christianity and the church in a rapidly secularizing society. He explores why young people in particular are “losing their religion.” The reasons, he argues, are not just the cultural hedonism that Christians usually blame, but lie closer to home: young people realize that too often the church itself doesn’t really believe what it claims to believe.

Read it here: http://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/witness/integrity-and-the-future-of-the-church

Peter and Susannah tackle our hardest listener questions: What are your hesitations about Christendom? Do you think that all national borders are unchristian? What IS the Bruderhof doing about Afghan refugees? Is it OK for a community to have insiders and outsiders? Is Plough just a bunch of SJWs?

Then, they revisit the question of the reality of nations - What’s important about national identity? Is it always dangerous? How is it related to family identity? How can we love, be rooted in, and derive some of our identity from imperfect - profoundly imperfect - countries?  

Then we move into speculation. Do nations have specific angels looking out for them? Is there such a thing as a national calling in history? If so, what is America’s?