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May 29, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | William H. Willimon |Javier Viera |Robert Saler |Richa Karmarkar
In its inaugural report released May 22, California’s year-old CA vs. Hate program found that anti-Hindu incidents were the second most common religion-related hate crime reported to a state-sponsored hotline in the past year. The non-emergency hate crime reporting hotline, administered by the California Civil Rights Department with support from organizations supporting minority groups in the state, saw 1,020 reports of hate in the past year.
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May 28, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | William H. Willimon |Javier Viera |Robert Saler |Claire Giangrave
During a closed-door meeting with 200 Italian bishops last week, Pope Francis allegedly used derogatory terms to describe gay people during debates about whether the Italian church should allow gay men to enter the seminary. According to local reports, the Argentine pope said “there is already enough faggotry” in Catholic seminaries, in his speech to prelates on May 20. The pope used the Italian term “frociaggine,” a rarely used slur to describe flamboyant gay attitudes.
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May 27, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | William H. Willimon |Javier Viera |Robert Saler |Nanette Sawyer
In Samuel’s time, visions were not widespread and the word of the Lord was rare. The same could be said of our own time. As the young Samuel is learning to listen for God when he first serves in the temple under the tutelage of Eli, he mistakes God’s voice for the voice of his human teacher at first. This makes perfect sense. We learn by listening to many voices in our lives: our teachers, our parents, our mentors, self-help books, best practices articles, TV shows, even TikTok.
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May 27, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | William H. Willimon |Javier Viera |Robert Saler |Philip Jenkins
I have been hunting ghosts. Thomas Hobbes wrote in 1651 that “the Papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: for so did the Papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that heathen power.” While I have long known this quote, only recently did I learn of the larger context of what initially seems like a cheap interfaith potshot. Hobbes really pursues the analogy in some detail and makes some good points.
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May 24, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | Robert Saler |William H. Willimon |Javier Viera |Nicolette Manglos-Weber
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. The encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus features one of my favorite moments of Jesus subtly correcting an interlocutor in all of scripture.
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May 21, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | William H. Willimon |Julian DeShazier |Isaac S. Villegas |Robert Saler
In Mark 14, the scene is tense. Jesus stands before an assembly of the high priest, all the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes. False witnesses rise and tell tales meant to condemn Jesus, but their accounts don’t add up. So the high priest asks Jesus a pointed question: “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” “I am,” Jesus says. At this, the high priest tears his clothes and accuses Jesus of blasphemy. The assembly agrees and condemns Jesus to death for it.
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May 20, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | William H. Willimon |Julian DeShazier |Isaac S. Villegas |Robert Saler
This famous encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus features a haunting interplay of freedom and destiny. On the one hand, the exchange contains one of the Bible’s more vivid pneumatological descriptions: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.
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May 20, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | William H. Willimon |Julian DeShazier |Isaac S. Villegas |Robert Saler
About 10 years ago, when the state of Pennsylvania passed a law requiring a background check for anyone who worked with children, Megan Benninger volunteered to help her church comply. At the time, Benninger and her husband were members of a small Southern Baptist Church, where the nursery was run by volunteers and things were a bit disorganized. “Everything was loosey-goosey,” she said.
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May 20, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | William H. Willimon |Julian DeShazier |Isaac S. Villegas |Robert Saler
As we were leaving the convention center in Charlotte after a long day of legislative meetings, a friend and prominent leader within our denomination whispered to me something he didn’t want overheard: “Being a global church is really hard work.” His simple yet insightful observation is another way of saying what my colleague Barry Bryant often maintains: Methodism’s biggest challenge is living a contextual theology in a connectional polity.
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May 17, 2024 | 
christiancentury.org | William H. Willimon |Julian DeShazier |Isaac S. Villegas |Robert Saler
Five years and a day after Paris’s Notre-Dame cathedral burned, a fire broke out on the roof of Copenhagen’s 400-year-old stock exchange building, known to locals as Børsen. Emergency responders, office workers, and pedestrians watched in shock as flames spread through the iconic building. Firefighters battled the fire on the upper floors while officials on the ground started pulling historic artwork out of the building.
