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2 months ago | 
christiancentury.org | Chris Thiessen |Mac Loftin |Brandon Ambrosino |Amy Frykholm
History professor Shannen Dee Williams (AP Photo / Aaron Doster) Shannen Dee Williams is an associate professor of history at the University of Dayton who specializes in the African American experience and Black Catholicism. She is author of Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle. Hear the full version of this interview on the Century podcast In Search Of.Can we start with an introduction to some of the Black Catholic sisters in your book? Absolutely.
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Amy Frykholm |Jack Jenkins |Aleja Hertzler- McCain |Brandon Ambrosino
Amy Frykholm’s High Hawk is an unusual novel in portraying a setting unfamiliar to many people: a Native American reservation. It is also unusual in being a story set in the recent past. In the American mind, Native Americans existed long ago and in faraway places.
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Sep 4, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Rosalind S. Brown |Philip Jenkins |Jack Jenkins |Amy Frykholm
In a famous essay about retiring to his family’s estate in hopes of writing, Michel de Montaigne compares his mind to a runaway horse: “Determined to devote myself as far as I could to spending what little life I have left quietly and privately; it seemed to me then that the greatest favour I could do for my mind was to leave it in total idleness, caring for itself, concerned only with itself, calmly thinking of itself.” But instead of the calm that he sought, Montaigne found that his mind...
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Jun 11, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Melissa Florer-Bixler |Nanette Sawyer |Amy Frykholm |Debie Thomas
I inherited my dad’s bible, a battered old Thompson Chain-Reference (KJV), upon his death in 1988. It is an amazing storehouse of information that Frank Charles Thompson assembled in hopes of couching the scriptures in “simple yet scholarly” terms for interested and studious laypeople—as well as for struggling preachers like Dad. The genesis of Thompson’s project, in fact, was his frustration regarding the limitations of reference Bibles in his time.
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Jun 10, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Melissa Florer-Bixler |Nanette Sawyer |Peter W. Marty |Amy Frykholm
When civil rights activist James M Lawson Jr. was expelled from Vanderbilt Divinity School in 1960 for participating in sit-ins in downtown Nashville restaurants, the Christian Century provided extensive coverage of the aftermath. The Century also covered Vanderbilt Divinity School’s creation of the James Lawson Institute for Research and Nonviolent Movements in 2022 in recognition of Lawson’s contributions.
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Jun 10, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Melissa Florer-Bixler |Nanette Sawyer |Peter W. Marty |Amy Frykholm
At the end of a silent prayer retreat at a Benedictine monastery, a Catholic deacon approached me over lunch and asked, “Young man, are you discerning a call to the priesthood?” I was a little flummoxed and said, “Why do you ask me that?” He responded, “I don’t know. You just have that look about you.” I had not noticed that look, but I told him I was already a Mennonite pastor. He said, “Oh, bless you, Father!”It’s sometimes a strange thing to be a pastor.
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Jun 10, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Melissa Florer-Bixler |Nanette Sawyer |Peter W. Marty |Amy Frykholm
Migrants seeking asylum line up while waiting to be processed after crossing the border near San Diego, California, on June 5. (AP Photo/Eugene Garcia) Leaders of Catholic organizations helping migrants at the US-Mexico border are denouncing President Joe Biden’s new asylum restrictions as shelter directors brace for its impact on conditions.
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Jun 7, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Melissa Florer-Bixler |Nanette Sawyer |Amy Frykholm |William H. Willimon
One of the biggest ever research projects into scripture is looking into how people use the Bible and what it means to them—an attempt to understand why, in a time when 90 percent of the world’s population has access to the Christian sacred text, relatively few consider it a foundation of their lives.
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Jun 7, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Nanette Sawyer |Melissa Florer-Bixler |Amy Frykholm |William H. Willimon
To receive these posts by email each Monday, sign up. For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century. Trusting in God sometimes feels like an act of will. I want trust to be easy. I want to relax into God’s protective shelter.
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Jun 7, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Melissa Florer-Bixler |Nanette Sawyer |Amy Frykholm |William H. Willimon
Century illustration (Source images: Getty) If I told you I’ve come to believe that the best way to respond to the climate crisis is the cultivation of the contemplative life, I’d expect raised eyebrows. You might reasonably reply that, no, now is the time for action, both corporately and individually, rather than contemplation. I hear that. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to listen knows we have reasons for disquiet about the future of our planet.
