Where They Come From
Every tradition keeps a short list. The Ten Commandments. The Eightfold Path. The precepts and house rules of a hundred cultures — each one an attempt to say, in a few lines, how a person should live. The Nineteen Agreements ask what such a list would say if it were written today, for everyone: what survives every translation, what every tradition was reaching toward, and what our own century has learned the hard way — about bodies, about words, about the living world, about repair.
Who They’re For
Everyone. Believers who want their faith without the gatekeeping. Seekers who haven’t found a tradition that fits. Skeptics who want an ethics without supernatural homework. The first Agreement says it plainly: if you have concluded there is nothing sacred to name, that conclusion is welcome here. You will never be asked to check your mind at the door.
The Stories Behind Them
Each agreement is carried by stories — ancient narratives from biblical and world traditions, retold through the lens of the agreement they illuminate. The stories are where the ideas get tested: in kitchens and deserts, in arguments and reconciliations, in lives that don’t resolve neatly. Selected stories will appear on this site; the full collection is forthcoming from Stillwell Press.
About the Author
Elias M. Stillwell is the author of The Nineteen Agreements and the Stone Reader fantasy series. He writes about ancient wisdom, modern ethics, and the stories we use to carry both.
For Communities
The Nineteen Agreements are used by Millbrook Bread and Questions Church — a third-space community where questions are welcomed and no creed is required. Congregations, study groups, and communities of every kind are invited to use the Agreements in their own gatherings.