Whatever you think about religion, it continues to shape our cultures,
communities and cities. This issue of Kinfolk takes a look at just some of the
ways in which faith undergirds society and touches people’s lives. Over the
course of several months, we documented the construction of a new
Lutheran church in Denmark. Mindful of the building’s longevity, the local
parish asked some of the nation’s biggest architects and designers to rethink
how Christianity might be carried into the future. Elsewhere, Christianity’s
history comes under scrutiny—we speak to Ekemini Uwan, the public
theologian holding the Christian church accountable for its complicity in
racial violence over the centuries. We also meet two Jewish duos from
opposite sides of the Atlantic: the Kleins, creators of the kosher food and
travel magazine Fleishigs, and Sara Moon and Samson Hart, founders of
Miknaf Ha’aretz, a community focused on Jewish land justice. Elsewhere, we
meet Ramy Youssef, the actor, screenwriter and director extraordinaire
whose work is giving comedic nuance to the Muslim American narrative. And
we interviewed the late surrealist film director David Lynch, who practiced
Transcendental Meditation twice a day since 1973. The words by which he
lived: “The key to all of it is, Does it make you feel better? Does it change
your life?”