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1 month ago | 
christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Peter W. Marty |Katherine Willis Pershey |Arno Rosenfeld
As Christian denominations in Africa join the preparation for the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, clerics, theologians, and laypeople are embracing the moment as a chance to reshape the continent’s spiritual and social future. The gathering of bishops in Nicaea (now Iznik, in Turkey) in 325 was called by Roman Emperor Constantine to settle factionalism in the early church caused by Arianism, a theology that said Jesus was not divine, that originated in Africa.
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1 month ago | 
christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Peter W. Marty |Katherine Willis Pershey |Arno Rosenfeld
What’s the Bible for? We asked dozens of writers to respond to this question in seven words or less, as well as to expand on their response in a few sentences. To see all of the responses together as they are posted, bookmark this page. Stirring us to believe in costly loveThere are countless ways to learn love in this world. But the costly character of love is best discovered through the biblical witness of a God who never quits on wayward people, pursuing them instead with grace and mercy.
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1 month ago | 
christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Peter W. Marty |Katherine Willis Pershey |Arno Rosenfeld
What’s the Bible for? We asked dozens of writers to respond to this question in seven words or less, as well as to expand on their response in a few sentences. To see all of the responses together as they are posted, bookmark this page. Proclaiming God's work as people understand itI'm convinced that the Bible is first and foremost for proclamation in worship.
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1 month ago | 
christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Peter W. Marty |Katherine Willis Pershey |Arno Rosenfeld
Brian Mast, the Republican congressman from Florida who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, directed committee staff on February 26 to refer to the West Bank exclusively as Judea and Samaria, according to an internal memo obtained by Axios. While not an official shift in US policy, the directive signals growing support among lawmakers for Israel’s annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory.
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2 months ago | 
christiancentury.org | Siddharth Kara |Mac Loftin |Katherine Willis Pershey |John R Rosenberg
If you use a mobile phone or tablet or are contemplating the purchase of an electric vehicle to lower your carbon footprint and lead a more sustainable life, this book will make you uncomfortable. That’s because all those items rely on cobalt as a key component for the lithium-ion rechargeable batteries that make them work.
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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 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.
