America may not be the shining "city on a hill." Yet despite its foibles and crimes, it's a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, a country that brings together many peoples and seeks, at its best, to make them one. For this, it deserves our gratitude and love. In this issue of Plough marking the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, our contributors celebrate that complicated legacy and enduring promise.

On this theme:

Wilfred M. McClay argues that July Fourth is not the day for guilt and shame, but a celebration.

David Bentley Hart claims baseball is the only truly redemptive form of memory.

Carolyn Haliburton Carter visits a Tennessee plantation in search of her enslaved ancestors.

Santiago Ramos visits St. Augustine, Florida, to find America’s Hispanic roots.

Emily Wilson, Dana Gioia, A. E. Stallings, Zena Hitz, and Joseph M. Keegin debate who America’s Homer is.

Peter Mommson asks if Christians owe their allegiance to God or to country.

Ken Burns explores what can bring the United States together despite historical disunity.

Heinrich Arnold tells what he learned about patriotism from his immigrant father.

Sarah Augustine of the Tewa People gives an Indigenous perspective on America’s founding.

Bethel McGrew looks at how the church is reaching young men who are spiritually homeless and very online.

Amanda Held Opelt discovers her Appalachian hometown’s hidden mining history.

Christina Nichol finds that America is loved with surprising fierceness in a small Kosovar town.

Vincent W. Lloyd says Howard Thurman shows that we don’t have to choose between action and contemplation.

Stephen Audubato describes the tensions that led Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day deeper into her calling.

Nathaniel Peters recounts how America’s founding generation won the right to free exercise of religion.

Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to apply their faith to the challenges we face. Each issue includes in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art.