Institute for Christian Socialism (ICS)
The Institute for Christian Socialism activates and equips US Christians and churches for the work of education, resistance, and constructive transformation. Our mission is to support US churches, their members, and institutions in confronting the world’s captivity to capitalism and in claiming, embodying, and promoting the radical socialism of the Christian faith and life. In time, we will be seeking financial support for each of the interrelated initiatives of ICS, including Radical Convivia, the Solidarities Project, a Fellows program, and more. For now, we are prioritizing The Bias Magazine.
Help us launch The Bias Magazine
The Bias is the inaugural project of the Institute for Christian Socialism and the premier voice of the Left in American Christianity. Cutting across the routine conventions of the Church and religious academy, we are the distinctive radical and ecumenical voice on politics, culture, economy, and environment. Your funding supports the production and labor costs for print and digital editions of The Bias. The print edition publishes twice a year, with digital content appearing regularly every week.
We need to fundraise $35,000 to sustain and build the work we've begun. Can you and your household consider a gift to help us grow in the new year?
Why The Bias? Why Now?
The Bias is designed to respond to the absence in the religious publishing landscape of a distinctive leftwing and socialist voice. The Bias will give voice to the conviction that the Christian Church and its theology cannot be accurately understood in our time apart from its material conditions. The absence of any significant representation of the political Left within the Church, academy, or religious and theological media only exacerbates these conditions. The Bias will speak to the intersection of church life and Left politics, better represent the church within the politics of the Left, and help nurture new social formations, within the church and society at large
Readers of First Things, Sojourners, and Christianity Today will find a unique voice and perspective presented in our pages, and will stand as a Christian iteration of publications like Jacobin, Catalyst, Dissent, and New Left Review, while remaining distinct enough in its format from these other programs to offer consistent brand and market differentiation.
What can I expect to find in The Bias?
The Bias will begin as a digital publication. We have begun planning to grow into a print magazine while continuing to generate quality digital content. The Bias will explore issues of politics, culture, economy, and environment from an ecumenical and radical perspective. Each published issue will present a guiding theme. For example, one issue may focus on “Race,” “The Left and Religion,” “Climate Change,” or “Labor.” While each of these themes is responsive to contemporary news cycles, the editorial voice and presentation will approach them in an “evergreen” fashion, so that every issue will be fresh and relevant for many months after initial release. This same relevance will also be sustained by the regular content posted to the magazine’s website every week.
The magazine format will allow for the publication of a number of notable voices from across the fields of contemporary theology, ethics, textual study, and religious history. Every piece published will emphasize fine writing and original, unconventional analysis of the intersection of Christianity with contemporary social, political, and cultural life. The reader can expect certain types of regular commentary, but both the print and online formats will allow for a great deal of flexibility in terms of themes, topics, and outlook. Cultural commentary, film and music criticism, and human-interest pieces will also be regular features of magazine.
The production cycle for our print magazine will be seasonal, with new writing appearing each week online. Essays and commentary will be curated and solicited by editors overseeing topics such as:
- Politics
- Economics
- Environment
- Anti-racist and feminist movements and theory
- The Religious Right
- Political theology
- History of Christian socialism
- Film, art, and literature
What does my donation help with?
In order to make The Bias a reality, we need your support to:
- Purchase technology and website tools to support the digital presence of The Bias
- Compensate writers and editors for their work
- Expand our artistic capacities by compensating radical artists
For this funding cycle, we need to fundraise $35,000 to sustain our initial launch. Costs of production forThe Bias are currently budgeted at $150,000 per year. If you would like to make a large gift and/or would like to explore partnership as a publisher, seminary, denominational organization, or religiously-focused philanthropy, we welcome the opportunity. Please email us at contact@christiansocialism.com.