-
1 month ago | 
christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Liz Charlotte Grant |Amy-Jill Levine |Jack Jenkins
President Donald Trump remains locked in at least five major lawsuits filed by religious groups during the first two months of his new administration, showing tensions between the White House and the faith-based organizations challenging his agenda.
-
Dec 6, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Reggie L. Williams |Victoria Barnett |Jack Jenkins
Since 1900, the Christian Century has published reporting, commentary, poetry, and essays on the role of faith in a pluralistic society. © 2023 The Christian Century. Contact Us Privacy Policy
-
Dec 4, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Reggie L. Williams |Victoria Barnett |Jack Jenkins
When I was a child, a few weeks before Christmas each year my family would gather with friends and neighbors at a nearby barn. The barn was home to gentle trail-ride horses, a Shetland pony known for its bite, and a scattering of sheep, goats, and rabbits that made up a petting zoo. On the floor of the barn, hay bales would be arranged as seats, centered around a wooden rack. Us children would don towels on our heads cinched with neckties, along with bathrobes cut to fit our small frames.
-
Dec 2, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Reggie L. Williams |Victoria Barnett |Jack Jenkins
Views of the Borgo Laudato Sì project at the Pontifical Villas's Gardens in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, November 27. (RNS photo/Claire Giangravé) Pope Francis’s plan to build an eco-village in the historic gardens of Castel Gandolfo, the summer residence of the popes, will be complete for the 2025 Jubilee, allowing pilgrims and tourists to participate in an immersive experience of “ecological conversion,” organizers said.
-
Nov 27, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Victoria Barnett |Reggie L. Williams |Jack Jenkins
Welcome to Madang. Madang is the outdoor living room of the world. Here, we invite you to sit and tune into unreserved, remarkable conversations with renowned authors, leaders, public figures, and scholars on religion, culture, and everything in between. This is the 44th Episode, a discussion with Peter Enns about his newest book, Curveball, and it was recorded live at Homebrewed Christianity Theology Beer Camp. Enns is the Abram S. Clemens Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University.
-
Nov 27, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Reggie L. Williams |Victoria Barnett |Jack Jenkins
Growing up in an evangelical Christian household, I was not allowed to listen to secular music—or to any music that did not explicitly point to Jesus Christ and reflect “biblical values.” Heavy metal, in particular, was considered evil, food for the flesh that would destroy my Christian spirit. Then, when I was ten years old, my uncle shared a DVD of music videos, This Is Solid State, Volume 4, from the Christian metal label Solid State Records.
-
Nov 27, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Victoria Barnett |Jack Jenkins |Aleja Hertzler- McCain
Before we shimmy to the inn, we tether our bodies to an instrument. We warm up. We square up to each other & weather zeal. More than spins, casineroscrave form. First, we must touch the body of the song. We must feel its shape—the conga’s tun tun the thrum of the bass, indeed, the whole throng of percussion that wants us to communewith the 4 & 8, to relish each pause. When partners wait, they dance contratiempo. Stillness in motion slits the path to awe. The angels will visit when our tempomust change.
-
Nov 25, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Reggie L. Williams |Victoria Barnett |Jack Jenkins
The most formative time for me before becoming a pastor took place in a squatters’ area outside of Buenos Aires. I was in Argentina to study at the Instituto Superior Evangélico de Estudios Teológicos, a seminary that is now closed. During my first semester, I attended a retreat with the human rights group I volunteered with. It was there that I met two young Roman Catholic laywomen living in a squatters’ area organized in base communities.
-
Nov 22, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | T. Denise Anderson |Victoria Barnett |Jack Jenkins |Aleja Hertzler- McCain
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. As a child, Harriet Tubman was regularly beaten by the people to whom she was hired. One time, she was struck in the head with a heavy metal weight, which led to a lifetime of debilitating headaches and seizures.
-
Nov 21, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Victoria Barnett |Jack Jenkins |Aleja Hertzler- McCain |Isaac S. Villegas
Buried in the foreword to Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership,” the not-quite-disavowed blueprint for the incoming Trump administration, is a strange reference to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “Open-borders activism,” the document declares, is “a classic example of what the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called ‘cheap grace.’” Bonhoeffer is then invoked to denounce other excesses of the left, such as environmental extremism and insufficient hostility to China.
