From the Editors: Remembering the Saints

An introduction to the November 2026 issue of Sojourners.

portrait and quote from Ben J. Salmon against yellow background
In 1918, Catholic Ben J. Salmon was sentenced to 25 years of hard labor for refusing to complete Selective Service forms. During his imprisonment, Salmon wrote an influential treatise on religious conscientious objection to war. / Illustration by Laura Freeman

THE CELEBRATIONS OF All Souls and All Saints in early November help Christians keep the names and memories of loved ones alive. “Commemorating the saints,” Hannah Bowman writes,
“promises us three things: a just future is coming; suffering will be honored and remembered; and our identity will be formed by their stories.” The great cloud of witnesses anchors us, writes editor Julie Polter, especially now, “when human institutions are shoved from flawed to crumbling.” This is true even when the ones we mourn—and our relationships with them—are complicated, as Kris Brunelli reveals in her letter to her friend and fellow artist Michelle Morey.

At Sojourners, we honor those who have passed while we learn from those living out the faithful call to peace and justice here and now. Associate editor Darren Saint-Ulysse sat down with Quaker activist and nonviolence trainer George Lakey, who turns 89 in November, to look back on his life and his new experiences of aging in faith. We hope this issue will remind you of all the souls, living and dead, who help you live out your own faithful, messy, beautiful story.

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An image of the November 2026 issue of Sojourners, titled "Face to Face." It features George Lakey on the cover
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