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Aug 29, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Javier Viera |Rebecca Weiss |Jack Jenkins |Aleja Hertzler- McCain
On October 7, Hamas terrorists brutally attacked several towns in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people—including many children—and kidnapping 240. The assault spurred Israel to launch a massive war in Gaza, with the stated goal of rescuing the hostages and obliterating Hamas. That war’s toll has been staggeringly high. An estimated 40,000 Gazans have been killed, most of them civilians and more than 16,000 of them children.
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Aug 28, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Javier Viera |Rebecca Weiss |Jack Jenkins |Aleja Hertzler- McCain
More than 250 young adults, leaders of world Methodism, and the top executive of the World Council of Churches gathered to speak out against wars and racism during Korea Peace Night, held on August 15 at the World Methodist Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden.
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Aug 26, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Javier Viera |Rebecca Weiss |Jack Jenkins |Aleja Hertzler- McCain
Munther Isaac is a Palestinian theologian and pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Beit Sahour. He serves as academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College, where he directs the annual Christ at the Checkpoint conference. His forthcoming book, Christ Under the Rubble, is based on an Advent sermon he delivered shortly after the current war in Gaza began. Tell us about where you grew up and how you became a Lutheran pastor.
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Aug 23, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Javier Viera |Dawn Araujo-Hawkins |Jack Jenkins |Aleja Hertzler- McCain
When Carieta Cain-Grizzell reached age 75, she had expected to retire after a lifetime as an African Methodist Episcopal Church member who became a pastor of several of its churches. Instead, the Washington, DC, native-turned-Californian is now “on loan” to the United Methodist Church, first pastoring a Fair Oaks congregation and recently appointed to one in Oakland.
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Aug 22, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Bart D. Ehrman |Michael Bird |Robert Stewart |Javier Viera
In 2022, Ligonier Ministries conducted a survey called “The State of Theology” to explore how Americans respond to various theological questions. Among clergy whom I follow on social media, the results garnered dismay, frustration, confusion, and—if memory serves—a couple of facepalm and eye roll emoji combos.
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Aug 22, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Javier Viera |Dawn Araujo-Hawkins |Jack Jenkins |Aleja Hertzler- McCain
In Canto 19 of Inferno, Dante depicts the damned souls of the simoniacs—those who enriched themselves by selling sacred things—imprisoned head-down in circular holes in the rock, feet on fire. Dante despised corrupt clergy and was especially severe about sins relating to greed, so it’s no surprise that he consigned quite a few medieval popes to this section of hell. But for Dante, simony wasn’t just about greed.
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Aug 21, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Javier Viera |Dawn Araujo-Hawkins |Jack Jenkins |Aleja Hertzler- McCain
In mid-July, Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts, was transformed into a place of worship as more than 50,000 Catholics gathered for the National Eucharistic Congress. The stadium full of young people, nuns in an array of habits, and priests in black and brown faced an altar adorned with four candlesticks and a golden monstrance displaying a consecrated host for eucharistic adoration.
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Aug 8, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Javier Viera |Dawn Araujo-Hawkins |Jack Jenkins |Aleja Hertzler- McCain
During seminary, for my field education requirement I worked for a year in the chaplain’s office at a state-run residential facility for people with profound intellectual and developmental disabilities. Clusters of apartment buildings and cottages throughout the 240-acre campus provided housing and care for 500 people, many of whom had lived there for decades due to their health-care needs and our society’s general lack of proper infrastructure to support their lives elsewhere.
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May 31, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | William H. Willimon |Javier Viera |Heidi Neumark |Melissa Florer-Bixler
The cursor zips across the screen in the video introducing me to AI sermon tech. I watch as a preacher selects a quote from a list and then adds a “social starter” to the page. The sermon manuscript buzzes to completion, followed by offers for related products—creative engagement questions or “viral captions” for social media. The ad is fast-paced and shiny, conveying the promise of the product: to create sermons with greater impact in a fraction of the time.
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May 31, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | William H. Willimon |Javier Viera |Heidi Neumark
Ametronome ticks as a Cher record spins to life on a turntable. The camera pulls back to reveal these objects arranged neatly on a hydraulic press—along with a trumpet, a piano, a guitar, analog cameras, cans of paint, leather-bound journals, old computer monitors, and even a stack of foam emojis. As the press plate lowers, the trumpet is crushed, the paint cans burst, and the camera lenses shatter.
