Ross Allen

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Articles

An unlettered theologian

Sep 20, 2023 | christiancentury.org | Nancy Koester |Mac Loftin |Alejandra Oliva |Ross Allen

One of the few Black women I remember reading about in history class in the 1970s was Sojourner Truth. We learned that she was a former slave who delivered a famous speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” The word theologian was not associated with Truth in my childhood textbooks, but biographer Nancy Koester adds that word to the list—alongside reformer, licensed preacher, and author.
R.M.N. is a kaleidoscopic allegory of all of Western civilization

Sep 19, 2023 | christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Peter W. Marty |Ross Allen |Melissa Florer-Bixler

R.M.N., the latest film by celebrated Romanian auteur Christian Mungiu, tells the true story of an incident of racist xenophobia in Transylvania. In 2020, locals in the village of Ditrău organized a campaign of intimidation and exclusion against three Sri Lankan men who had been hired to work in a local bakery. Mungiu’s film deconstructs a churchgoing community’s Christian hospitality. His approach is effective: he spurns cheap judgments about superficial faith.
Flamingos et al

Sep 19, 2023 | christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Peter W. Marty |Ross Allen |Melissa Florer-Bixler

When I say “I,” it is a supposed person. —Emily DickinsonEmily, I am writing this poem to be another— my aged neighbor, kneeling at her flower bed her prayer the lantana she’s gold-transplanting. Or the person of the flamingos, New Orleans zoo, I took in yesterday, the pink sunset their preening feathers pinked, our pinkness the whole flock of us, on spindle legs, our bodies tower rooms, our necks descending, condescending to drink the black pools at our feet.
Episode 32: Robert P. Jones, author of The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy

Sep 19, 2023 | christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Peter W. Marty |Ross Allen |Melissa Florer-Bixler

Welcome to Madang! Madang is the outdoor living room of the world. Here we invite you to sit and tune into unreserved, remarkable conversations with renowned authors, leaders, public figures, and scholars on religion, culture, and everything in between. This is the 32nd episode of Madang, in which I converse with Robert P. Jones on his book, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy. Jones is is the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
The genealogy of selfhood

Sep 18, 2023 | christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Ross Allen |Melissa Florer-Bixler |Peter W. Marty

It was the kind of pop culture ephemera that I would typically forget: a 2007 radio ad for a reality show about people I’d never heard of, doing things I didn’t know anything about. Maybe it was the uncommon family name or the alliteration of Keeping Up with the Kardashians that grappled into my memory. In the following years, I never saw the show (which ran until 2021), followed breakout star Kim’s Instagram, or purchased any of her many products.
Why so much judgment? (Romans 14:1-12)

Sep 15, 2023 | christiancentury.org | Melissa Florer-Bixler |Ross Allen |Peter W. Marty |Ray Speller

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. Because language matters, careful teaching and preaching matter. The writer of Hebrews characterizes the word of God as “sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb. 4:13).
The pedagogy of Ancient Aliens

Sep 15, 2023 | christiancentury.org | Melissa Florer-Bixler |Ross Allen |Peter W. Marty |David Armstrong

(Illustration by Eric Nyquist) I admit, when i first encountered the ancient astronaut theory by way of the popular History Channel series Ancient Aliens about ten years ago, I laughed. The Intro to Religion student who recommended it to me seemed taken aback. “But it affects your field and our faith,” he said. I could tell by the look on his face that he was serious—and that he had questions.
Catharsis at church

Sep 14, 2023 | christiancentury.org | Melissa Florer-Bixler |Ross Allen |Peter W. Marty |Mac Loftin

“You need to let that out.” I remember my therapist saying these words. I remember because it was the first time in our years together that they cut the “I get you to talk / you figure it out” bit and flat out gave me some advice.
Sister Holiday takes the heat

Sep 14, 2023 | christiancentury.org | Margot Douaihy |Melissa Florer-Bixler |Ross Allen |Peter W. Marty

There are two main characters in Scorched Grace: Sister Holiday Walsh—who makes a lot of her belief that she’s the first punk nun with a past—and the heat, whether from the fire that ravages St. Sebastian, the Catholic school where she teaches guitar as a Sister of the Sublime Blood, or the subtropical steam of the city of New Orleans. Having lived there, I can affirm that this heat, especially in summer, is every bit as oppressive, stultifying, and hallucinatory as Margot Douaihy renders it.
When Judaism became Judaism

Sep 7, 2023 | christiancentury.org | Yonatan Adler |Ross Allen |Heidi Neumark |Katherine Willis Pershey

Yonatan Adler posits a convincing thesis, tightly and compellingly argued, that widespread observance of Pentateuchal legislation by Judeans—or what we now call Judaism—emerged no earlier than the Hellenistic period.