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May 15, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Julian DeShazier |Isaac S. Villegas |Robert Saler |Benjamin Dueholm
Pádraig Ó Tuamais a poet, theologian, and host of the podcast Poetry Unbound with On Being Studios. In 2022 he published both the chapbook Feed the Beast and the anthology Poetry Unbound. This interview took place at Oklahoma City University, where both interviewers teach. Lisa M. Wolfe: In preparation for this interview, I read your 2015 collection In the Shelter. It felt very comforting and pastoral, kind of devotional. There’s even a litany in it.
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May 15, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Julian DeShazier |Isaac S. Villegas |Robert Saler |Benjamin Dueholm
The Century invites readers to submit first-person narratives (under 1,000 words) on the following topics:Face (Deadline: August 1, 2024)Source (Deadline: November 1, 2024)A selection of submissions will be published in the print or web magazine. Authors of the selected essays will receive $100 and a free one-year subscription to the magazine. Send essays to [email protected].
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May 14, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Antonia Hylton |Benjamin Dueholm |Katherine Willis Pershey |Melissa Florer-Bixler
I was at a youth soccer tournament when I walked on the grounds of what remains of the Crownsville Hospital for the first time. My youngest was on a team that hosted a tournament on the hospital campus just off I-97, about a 15-minute drive from our home in Annapolis, Maryland. When we drove up to the freshly mowed fields with makeshift bleachers and parked by the decaying Georgian buildings covered in overgrown wild ivy, I felt the hair on my arms raise a little.
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May 14, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Benjamin Dueholm |Melissa Florer-Bixler |Julian DeShazier |Jonathan Tran
Mainstream American Jewish institutions have vociferously condemned the pro-Palestinian protests that have roiled student campuses this spring, throwing their support behind Israel and labeling critics, even Jewish ones, as antisemitic. In an April 25 MSNBC appearance, Anti-Defamation League head Jonathan Greenblatt went so far as to suggest that some campus activist groups—including Jewish Voice for Peace—are Iranian proxies.
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May 13, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Benjamin Dueholm |Katherine Willis Pershey |Melissa Florer-Bixler |Jonathan Tran
One way to deepen your empathy for other people who live in difficult circumstances is to imagine walking in their shoes. I often do this when I encounter people in daily life who perform jobs that I’m not sure I could manage or tolerate for even a day. Whether it’s an individual enduring dangerous work conditions, tedious assignments, a hostile environment, or depressingly low wages, I try to picture trading my life for theirs.
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May 13, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Benjamin Dueholm |Katherine Willis Pershey |Melissa Florer-Bixler |Jonathan Tran
Union Theological Seminary’s board of trustees voted Thursday to divest from all companies profiting off the war in Gaza. Union, a private, ecumenical school, shares a graduate studies program with Columbia University but is independent and maintains a separate, $127 million endowment, is the first US institute of higher education known to divest from the war in Gaza. “We do it with humility and we do it with a sense of moral conviction,” said Union’s president, Serene Jones.
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May 13, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Benjamin Dueholm |Katherine Willis Pershey |Melissa Florer-Bixler |Jonathan Tran
Does the same holy spirit that confuses language make true communication possible? Many commentators have read the story of Pentecost as a reversal of the confusion of languages characteristic of the Tower of Babel: just as God confuses the language of overambitious humans in Genesis, so the coming of God’s Holy Spirit at the birth of the church allows for linguistic differences to be overcome.
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May 10, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Benjamin Dueholm |Melissa Florer-Bixler |Jonathan Tran |Katherine Willis Pershey
Birds are coming at our house from all directions these days. Last week, a loud thud against our east-facing picture window signaled to me a bird crisis. I went outside to investigate, and there on the patio lay a house finch on its back, feet straight to the sky. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, so I assumed the bloodied look of his feathers was from the high-speed collision. But the red hue of those head and breast feathers was just his God-given beauty.
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May 10, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Benjamin Dueholm |Melissa Florer-Bixler |Jonathan Tran |Katherine Willis Pershey
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. I recently spent some time discussing 1 John with a dozen or so parishioners. Despite the letter’s quotability—who doesn’t love “God is love”?—many of the participants found the letter repetitive to a fault.
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May 9, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Melissa Florer-Bixler |Benjamin Dueholm |Jonathan Tran
lenny duncan (they/them) is a writer, speaker, scholar, and media producer working at the forefront of racial justice in America. lenny is the author of Dear Church, United States of Grace, and Dear Revolutionaries, and co-creator of the podcast BlackBerryJams with PRX.
