Julie Polter

Washington, D.C.

Managing Editor @Sojourners mag. Faith, culture, bread & circuses. Opinions my own. George Mason MFA, BU Theology, and @OhioState alum. OH-IO

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Articles

Research Doesn’t Matter ... Until Someone You Love Gets Cancer

1 month ago | sojo.net | Julie Polter

When I was just shy of 18, I watched my mother die of chronic lymphocytic leukemia. CLL killed her less than two years after diagnosis. She was 51. Fast forward a few decades: Over the past 30 years, researchers have discovered biomarkers for a variety of cancers, including CLL, which can aid in diagnosis, assessing prognosis, and developing new, more targeted treatments.
April 2025

2 months ago | sojo.net | Julie Polter

Learning to be emotionally available will be some of the deepest and most spiritual work I will do.
What This Election Season Has Obscured About the Toll of War

Oct 10, 2024 | sojo.net | Julie Polter

ON NOV. 11, the world observes Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, or what we in the U.S. call Veterans Day. In the U.S. it is meant to honor anyone who served in the armed forces. If you know Sojourners — which has a long history of anti-war activism, sharing the gospel call to nonviolence, and naming and critiquing the destruction wrought by the U.S. military-industrial complex — you may wonder where I’m going with this.
November 2024

Sep 24, 2024 | sojo.net | Julie Polter

Honoring the civil rights activist whose accomplishments spanned from founding Sweet Honey in the Rock to writing an opera of Parable of the Sower.
The Calculus of Responsibility and Complicity

Jul 18, 2024 | sojo.net | Julie Polter

One week this spring, my Instagram feed served up: A detail from a ground-breaking cellular-level map of a cubic millimeter of the human brain, showing a single neuron connected with more than 5,600 nerve fibers. The ebullient smile of a 9-month-old relative. And the lifeless, emaciated body of a child in Gaza. Awe. Joy. Horror. I keep thinking of them all.
August 2024

Jul 11, 2024 | sojo.net | Julie Polter

Climate change is a test of whether our big brain is attached to a big enough heart to prompt us to act.
Book Bans Are Almost Never Just About Books

May 16, 2024 | sojo.net | Julie Polter

I WAS WHAT library advocate Mychal Threets calls a “library kid.” My mother, a high-school dropout who loved to read, took me almost every Saturday. One of my earliest memories is playing in the stacks while she picked out romance novels and murder mysteries. This 1903 Carnegie library, one of almost 1,700 U.S. libraries funded by industrialist Andrew Carnegie between 1886 and 1919, seemed elegant and grand to a Midwestern country kid.
June 2024

Apr 24, 2024 | sojo.net | Julie Polter

Subscribe to Sojourners for as little as $3.95 per month! SubscribeLog in For AccessArchivesWrite For SojournersTheologian Katya Tolstaya on making sense of evil, including Putin’s ongoing war against Ukraine. When lies and AIDS brought my parents’ facade of superiority crashing down, I lost faith – but grace found us all. A conversation with Jonathan Tran about the “personalist” approach to race and the church's role in a reconstructed imagination.
Why Christians Should Care About Press Freedom

Jan 18, 2024 | sojo.net | Julie Polter

Editor's note: As of Jan. 10, 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented at least 79 journalists and media workers killed in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank since Oct. 7. IN OCTOBER, NEARLYa week after the brutal Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israeli citizens, an Israeli military tank crew at the Israel-Lebanon border fired at a group clearly identified as press. Reuters’ journalist Issam Abdallah was killed, and six others were injured. Israel denied targeting the journalists.
Why Christians Should Care About Press Freedom

Jan 10, 2024 | sojo.net | Julie Polter

Editor's note: As of Jan. 10, 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented at least 79 journalists and media workers killed in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank since Oct. 7. This article will appear in the forthcoming February/March issue of Sojourners. IN OCTOBER, NEARLYa week after the brutal Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israeli citizens, an Israeli military tank crew at the Israel-Lebanon border fired at a group clearly identified as press.