25 Lines For 25 Years

October 17, 2025/KtBniks

Editors’ Note: This collection of 25 titles and taglines from KtB pieces published each year from 2001 to 2025 was compiled by editors Brook Wilensky-Lanford and Jennifer MacKenzie, and read aloud by a dozen KtBniks at our recent Proof of Life: KtB’s 25th Birthday Party at Judson Church on October 18, 2025. Click on the URLs to go to the original stories; see the footnotes for author and date of publication.

God’s Own Knowledge: A theology of sex shops, movies, and nothingness may be the biggest thing to hit Christianity since Martin Luther.[i]

Jew Like Me Undercover in Brooklyn’s mosh pit of piety.[ii]

Prayer for You How do you get God’s attention? Try sweet talking his girlfriend.[iii]

Gods of New York America began in the streets — with religious violence.[iv]

Who Wants to Live Forever? There’ll be pie in the sky when you die — but what if there’s not enough to go around?[v]

Grace A prayer before meals—those we eat, and those we are.[vi]

Brand Name Buddhism For Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, it’s alright to get a little dirty, so long as you know which detergent will get your karma clean.[vii]

How to Make a Martyr When a death becomes larger than life, memory hangs in the balance.[viii]

Pilgrimage to Nowhere – In the Beginning Would an activists’s life have been better spent in the in the lotus position, seeking no-self?[ix]

Ash Wednesday Already How’s a girl supposed to go about mourning in a world like this?[x]

I Would Use My Last Ounce of Strength to Freak Out There’s been an attack or an earthquake and you’re waiting for help lying on the ground, possibly bleeding and who shows up? Some dick with an e-meter.[xi]

MIC CHECKED How Occupy Wall Street Occupies your heart[xii]

Pentecost in Mexico The Jesus freak has a certain power to clear a room.[xiii]

Dear America, Moderate Muslims Exist And they love bacon, booze, and cookies and cream.[xiv]

BLACK PREACHER AT THE FAMILY REUNION “Do it or I’ll cut your throat,” Kevin said. You thought about it, yelling the word and then running.”[xv]

MY MAMA IS A DEMON And I’m totally cool with that.[xvi]

White People Problems A Time for Burning After Ferguson[xvii]

THE BUDDHA LOVES BOUNDARIES Being in the moment doesn’t mean they can punch you in the face.[xviii]

NOTES FROM DC Immediately following the 2016 election[xix]

EVANGELICAL ANXIETY “We did not do therapy. Psychoheresy, some called it.”[xx]

I Was A Teenage Lemming God A harmless rodent with vast existential consequences.[xxi]

End-of-Life Lullaby Grieving is a lit cave.[xxii]

This Way to the Gas Chambers, Ladies and Gentlemen (Auschwitz 2003)

It occurred to me that one is always imagining how one could live in Auschwitz. But almost everyone died in Auschwitz.[xxiii]

Taken in Evangelical America Once again, I find I am a kind of believer.[xxiv]

To Breathe for A Spell I have never been more aware of my breath, of the simple act of breathing, than I have in this last year..[xxv]

All in the Name of God: The Multibillion Dollar Troubled Teen Industry and the Christians Who Profit from It I was one of the fortunate who didn’t get sent away, but countless others can’t say the same.[xxvi]

Holy Thursday Pop-Up Foot Clinic Listen while two feet soak.[xxvii]

The Mud of Us Grief calls for outlandish acts of love.[xxviii]

In the Heart of the Heart of My Country: Once I dreamed of being a revolutionary. Now I walk the park collecting small pieces of brush in hope of fire.