Phil Christman Journalist Profile

Articles

African Hebrew Israelites finally see legal victory against Israel's deportation threats

1 month ago | christiancentury.org | Liz Charlotte Grant |Mac Loftin |Phil Christman |David Klein

The small African Hebrew Israelite community in Israel’s Negev Desert last month celebrated a major milestone in its struggle for recognition in the Jewish state, as more than 100 members seem to have avoided deportation. In a court battle spanning decades, Israeli judicial authorities ruled a majority of residents with undocumented or unclear status in the country will be placed on a pathway toward permanent residency and potential citizenship. “It’s been really rough.
English Teacher Weekly for Feb. 14th

Feb 14, 2025 | englishteacherweekly.substack.com | Andrew Campbell |Phil Christman |John Warner |Peter Biles

Welcome to English Teacher Weekly—your source for what’s worthwhile from the worlds of literature, education, Christian thought, and the humanities. Happy Valentine’s Day! This week’s edition is my valentine to you. Thanks for being a part of this project. There’s a 30% subscriber discount for the next few weeks for those of you that would like to contribute to ETW. I’m deeply appreciative of your support. Thanks!Also, here is your call for reader submissions.
What can the church offer trans people right now?

Jan 13, 2025 | christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Phil Christman |Wendell Berry |Rachel Mann

If you have been paying even the lightest attention to public discourse, you will know that trans people are hurting right now. When I transitioned back in 1993, the traditional media in both the United Kingdom and the United States barely mentioned us, except for occasional mockery. We were just too hidden. Then trans people grew in confidence, and things got better for us. I thought it would just keep going that way. It has not.
Episode 11: Queering Poetry with Jessica Jacobs

Jan 11, 2025 | christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Phil Christman |Wendell Berry

Jessica Jacobs is the author of unalone, poems in conversation with the Book of Genesis (Four Way Books, March 2024); Take Me with You, Wherever You’re Going (Four Way Books, 2019), one of Library Journal’s Best Poetry Books of the Year, winner of the Devil’s Kitchen and Goldie Awards, and a finalist for the Brockman-Campbell, American Fiction, and Julie Suk Book Awards; Pelvis with Distance (White Pine Press, 2015), a biography-in-poems of Georgia O’Keeffe, winner of the New Mexico Book...
California congregations vow to help neighbors even as their buildings are lost to fires

Jan 10, 2025 | christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Phil Christman |Wendell Berry |Bob Smietana

A man walks in front of the burning Altadena Community Church, January 8, in the downtown Altadena section of Pasadena, California. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello) Like many of their neighbors, leaders of the Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center watched in horror this week as wildfires destroyed homes, businesses and entire neighborhoods in Southern California, with the destruction playing out on social media and television news. On Wednesday, their temple, too, was counted among the losses.
Who needs Roman imperial fantasies?

Jan 9, 2025 | christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Phil Christman |Wendell Berry |Kathryn Reklis

Ridley Scott’s movies are often splashy epics about near impossible feats undertaken by flawed but honorable and charismatic men. His subjects are both historical heroes (Napoleon, 2023; Robin Hood, 2010) and ordinary men who rise to extraordinary circumstances (White Squall, 1996; Black Hawk Down, 2001; The Martian, 2015). He might be forgiven, then, for basically reworking the story from his first Gladiator movie (2000) with a few variations and new characters in Gladiator II.
The brokenness of Christology

Jan 7, 2025 | christiancentury.org | Sarah Coakley |Mac Loftin |Phil Christman |Wendell Berry

Sarah Coakley’s characteristically layered and learned inquiry into Christology uses brokenness as the central thread to stitch together accounts of often disparate doctrinal inquiries: the cross, liturgy, and asceticism. The brokenness of Jesus’ body on the cross moves to and through the fraction of the bread in the Eucharist. Underneath that dyad is Coakley’s abiding interest in the apophatic.
The women who would be war heroes

Jan 2, 2025 | christiancentury.org | Kristin Hannah |Mac Loftin |Phil Christman |Wendell Berry

For many Americans, the tears never stopped. While the 1973 Paris Peace Accords stilled the guns of the Vietnam War, they did not still the legacy of atrocities on all sides nor the record of leaders’ lies on all sides—including those told by three US presidents. Neither did the accords still our systemic pretense that women played little or no role in the conflict.
Does Teaching Literature and Writing Have a Future?

Dec 2, 2024 | plough.com | Phil Christman

To wake up one morning and learn that one’s job might soon be “disrupted,” or outright eliminated, by the emergence of an overhyped new technology that excites rich people is – let’s start here – a pretty common experience by now. It puts you in good company.
A Bit of Anecdotal Evidence About One Cause of the Reading Crisis

Oct 14, 2024 | philipchristman.substack.com | Phil Christman

For several years now, I have had my students write informal reading-and-writing autobiographies in the first week of the semester. I first hit upon this assignment idea during the pandemic — it was a way for me to learn a bit about the students’ backgrounds and previous experiences in the absence of the classroom meetings, conferences, and other in-person conversation that would normally be taking place.