Editorial policy
The journal's authority rests neither in speed nor personality. It depends upon careful argument, responsible sources, truthful art records, and a willingness to acknowledge error.
Essays begin with Scripture and primary theological sources, then use historical scholarship where context or dispute requires it. Direct quotations, distinctive formulations, precise historical claims, reported findings, and interpretations received from another writer carry a point-of-use note or linked acknowledgment. Paraphrase does not remove that obligation. Each essay ends with a complete source record and exactly three carefully chosen works for further reading.
Artwork is chosen as a theological conversation partner, not decoration. The Sacred Archive records artist, title, date, medium, collection, source, and the reason for each pairing. Rights and source records are verified before publication.
Artificial intelligence assists research, drafting, source checks, simulated critique, revision, and production under Adam Roe's editorial direction and standing authorization. The editor remains publicly responsible. Standing authorization does not certify personal review of every finished manuscript, and simulated reviewers are never represented as human readers or independent peer reviewers. Read the full editorial method.
After every eight numbered essays, the journal audits repeated claims, metaphors, sources, syntax, assumed arguments, missing objections, neglected traditions, complicating evidence, and language that has become too mechanical. The next editorial sequence must respond with a concrete change.
The journal uses curated correspondence rather than open comments. Selected exchanges may be edited and published only with permission. Human readers are invited to test arguments. A private AI-simulated panel supports editorial critique but is not counted as that human circle.
Cross & Collect publishes a substantial weekly essay, with occasional calendar-shaped letters or observances. It is not a daily content feed or a reactive news service. Departments remain few, and guest work remains limited and commissioned.
When a volume is complete, the journal will publish a synthesis essay, a theological table of contents, a closing collect, and downloadable PDF and EPUB editions. A folio is released only after the volume itself is complete.
Why I Began Cross & Collect remains as a signed historical founding document. It is preserved outside the numbered theological sequence and does not determine the journal by personality.
Corrections log
Typographical repairs that do not alter meaning may be made silently. Corrections to facts, quotations, attribution, chronology, artwork records, or the substance of an argument are noted here and, when useful, on the essay itself.
Clarified that routine editorial work and scheduled publication can proceed through an AI workflow under Adam Roe's standing authorization. This does not certify his personal review of every finished manuscript. Simulated critique is distinct from human review, correspondence, and readership.
The About page, editorial policy, and machine-readable methodology have been aligned with this distinction.
Read the clarified pageAdded point-of-use source notes for the Book of Common Prayer and the maxim associated with Prosper of Aquitaine, and distinguished cited sources from further reading.
The essay's argument is unchanged.
Read the corrected essayAdded point-of-use source notes for Lumen Gentium and John Wesley's account of early Methodist practice and holiness.
The essay's argument is unchanged.
Read the corrected essayAdded point-of-use source notes for Irenaeus, the Articles of Religion, Dei Verbum, and Frederick Douglass.
The essay's argument is unchanged.
Read the corrected essayAdded explicit point-of-use acknowledgment of Taylor Burton-Edwards as the basis for the historical overview and added notes for the liturgical resources discussed.
The essay's theological argument is unchanged.
Read the corrected essaySend a correction to admin@crossandcollect.org.