D. L. Mayfield

Portland

Co-Host at Prophetic Imagination Station

Writer at God is My Special Interest

Author!

Articles

For the first time in a century, the Holy Land has no chief rabbi

Jul 4, 2024 | christiancentury.org | Samuel Wells |Sean Rowe |D. L. Mayfield |Bob Smietana

In a historic moment, Israel’s two chief rabbis, David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef, left office on Sunday with no clear successors elected in their stead, leaving the posts vacant for the first time since the 1920s. Last week, the pair closed out what were supposed to be 10-year terms that had been extended a year due to internal politicking that has repeatedly delayed the election of their replacements by the 150-member council of rabbis and public officials.
Jihyun Oh elected Stated Clerk of the PCUSA general assembly

Jul 3, 2024 | christiancentury.org | Samuel Wells |Sean Rowe |D. L. Mayfield |Bob Smietana

In a 420-2 vote, Jihyun Oh was elected and then installed as the next stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) general assembly Monday. Oh, who’s currently director of Mid Council Ministries in the Office of the General Assembly, begins her new work on August 1. Oh is the first Korean American, the second woman, and the first woman of color to serve in the denomination’s highest ecclesial office.
PCUSA votes to divest from Israel bonds

Jul 3, 2024 | christiancentury.org | Samuel Wells |Sean Rowe |D. L. Mayfield |Bob Smietana

The general assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted Monday to divest from Israel bonds and begin the process of encouraging two companies it believes are contributing to human rights abuses against Palestinians in the occupied territories to quit their practices. Both votes were wrapped up in other legislation that passed unanimously as part of the biennial gathering of the denomination meeting online and in person in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Self evident truths, a column by Peter Marty

Jul 3, 2024 | christiancentury.org | Samuel Wells |Sean Rowe |D. L. Mayfield |Bob Smietana

If you want to patent a personal innovation of yours for which you wish to secure the rights, you’d be smart to learn about the doctrine of obviousness. It’s the most fundamental principle of patent law and the most commonly litigated issue in patent infringement cases. Section 103 of the US Patent Act bars the patenting of any invention that would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the relevant field when the invention was created.
Understanding Czesław Miłosz

Jul 2, 2024 | christiancentury.org | Eva HOFFMAN |Samuel Wells |Sean Rowe |D. L. Mayfield

This illuminating study by novelist, historian, and critic Eva Hoffman is a literary biography of the Polish Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz. One of the greatest writers of our time, Miłosz captures in much of his writing the intensities of a violent century of war and the terrors of authoritarian regimes. A Catholic who helped to shelter Jews, he writes about the Holocaust, but he also writes about the loneliness and longing of exile, reaching back into memory of the particulars of his early life.
Lectionary essay for July 7 Ordinary 14B Mark 6 1 13

Jul 1, 2024 | christiancentury.org | Samuel Wells |Sean Rowe |D. L. Mayfield |Bob Smietana

For decades i have revisited a little book by Jesuit priest Robert Ochs called God Is More Present Than You Think. The claim turns out to be true in surprising ways. Mark’s story of Jesus returning to his hometown is an unsettling reminder of what may happen when we begin to recognize—or practice—the presence of God. From one point of view, we can read it as a teaching tale: you can’t go home again. You can’t fit back into the role you once had in a family system.
Climate catastrophe is here

Jul 1, 2024 | christiancentury.org | Samuel Wells |Sean Rowe |D. L. Mayfield |Bob Smietana

Another summer, another parade of broken US heat records. Experienced hikers died on the trail. Homeless shelters had to retool as cooling centers. Summer camps moved activities permanently indoors. This was all before late June, when this issue went to press. Is climate change to blame? It’s complicated. Many factors contribute to weather events, and it’s difficult to isolate their effects. An equally correct answer: yes, of course it is.
Mary Patterson, preserver of Church of God in Christ history, dies at 83

Jul 1, 2024 | christiancentury.org | Samuel Wells |Sean Rowe |D. L. Mayfield |Bob Smietana

Mary P. Patterson, who was the widow of a Church of God in Christ presiding bishop and became known for her efforts to preserve the history of the historically Black Pentecostal denomination, died on June 24. She was 83. Patterson had been diagnosed with cancer and had been under hospice care, said Darrin Rodgers, director of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center in Springfield, Missouri.
Reaching out (Mark 5:21-43)

Jun 28, 2024 | christiancentury.org | Brad Roth |Samuel Wells |D. L. Mayfield |Brandon Ambrosino

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. In the olden days of my youth, I was a hay-baling farmboy. It went like this: My brothers and I would balance on a heaving flat wagon hitched behind a hay baler pulled by an old green tractor.
Praying the hours with W. H. Auden

Jun 28, 2024 | christiancentury.org | Samuel Wells |D. L. Mayfield |Brandon Ambrosino |Kathryn Reklis

In 1955, W. H. Auden published The Shield of Achilles. The poetry collection includes a lengthy sequence of poems that I would rate high among the spiritual and devotional classics of the 20th century but which still receive nothing like the attention they deserve. I am delighted that my Baylor University colleague Alan Jacobs has produced a splendid new edition of that book (from Princeton University Press), with an invaluable introduction and scholarly commentary.