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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.
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Jul 31, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Claire Giangrave |Brandon Ambrosino |Rachel Mann
(Illustration: Studio M1 / iStock / Getty) What role does friendship play in a flourishing community? I ask this as a person who was raised to believe that, as the title of a Kacey Musgraves song has it, family is family—that it is the primary set of relationships that won’t let you down. Even if this simply reveals the extent to which I grew up in the UK equivalent of the boondocks, I still hold a hunch that family units (in their wonderfully rich varieties) trump friendships.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
thetablet.co.uk | Rachel Mann
An Anglican priest and poet explores poetry of faith, ghosts and the fragility of being human in a fickle world. Seamus Heaney said that poetry has never been fully secularised. I read this as meaning it is haunted by the ghosts of faith. Some poets embrace these spectres. Consider Camille Ralphs’ disconcertingly accomplished debut, After You Were, I Am (Faber, £12.99; Tablet price £11.69).
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Mar 13, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Amy Frykholm |Yolanda Pierce |E. Heath |Rachel Mann
Skip to main content 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.
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Mar 12, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Yolanda Pierce |E. Heath |Rachel Mann |Amy Frykholm
My cat, who’s kept inside all day, got bored, somehow slipped into my attached garage, cornered and caught a little mouse, and gored that creature’s little heart. My quick triage assigned him good as dead. I pulled off Cat, put Cat inside, returned to Mouse, then toed him, twitching still, onto my Welcome Mat, flicking him in the ditch across the road. All day, as if in pain, my old cat yowled, glaring at me with flat, accusing eyes. “Our bond,” he seemed to say, “is badly fouled.
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Mar 11, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Yolanda Pierce |E. Heath |Rachel Mann |Amy Frykholm
On the pulpit at my seminarythere was a plaque that only the preacher could see. It read: “We wish to see Jesus.” The reminder was there for all who stood behind it that our job was to make Christ’s life and message real and relevant for those who heard our words. It is a grounding statement, reminding the preacher of the stakes. As Jesus approaches his death, he tries to tell the ones he loves the most about what is at stake. From his friends’ perspective, Jesus is just getting started.
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Mar 8, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | E. Heath |Yolanda Pierce |Amy Frykholm |Rachel Mann
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. At just about every major sports game, someone will be holding a John 3:16 sign. The verse reads. There’s a whole backstory about why this particular Bible verse has become so popular at sporting events that’s worth looking into if you are interested.
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Mar 6, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Yolanda Pierce |Amy Frykholm |E. Heath |Rachel Mann
An Amish raw milk farmer in southern Pennsylvania may have a glimmer of hope to escape an injunction he says will put him out of business and hurt customers all over the country who depend on his products for medical reasons. For a while on February 29, a Lancaster County judge seemed inclined to extend the injunction, based on the fact Amos Miller has refused to obtain state permits required to sell raw milk and cheese.
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Mar 6, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Yolanda Pierce |Amy Frykholm |E. Heath |Rachel Mann
A cross section of religious leaders gathered on the steps of the Louisiana Capitol recently to offer prayers and protest over the state’s plan to add the electric chair and poison gas to its lineup of execution methods.
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Mar 5, 2024 | 
loudersound.com | Rachel Mann
Life has an infinite capacity to surprise us, though some surprises are more welcome than others. When green-haired Finnish pop queen Alma went big, Pete Lambrou and Ciaran Morahan, aka VLMV, had to act quickly. Until then, they had been known as ALMA. Tempting as it might have been to piggyback on Alma’s fame, Lambrou achieved a cunning compromise: invert the lettering and keep the original pronunciation. “At every gig, we still get one person who asks us how we pronounce it,” he laughs wryly.
