“In Mark, women are present. They are witnesses, bold and at times seemingly fearless. Their testimony disrupts expectations about who is authorized to speak and who is to be believed.” – Jennifer Kaalund www.christiancentury.org/online-colum...

“The first season of Beef had a more implicit Christian focus on forgiveness as the means of ending the beef that drove the story. Season two, on the other hand, has an implicit Buddhist focus that emerges subtly.” – Kathryn Reklis www.christiancentury.org/screen-time/...

“Fascism gives its followers a rush of excitement, a gross theatricality that pulls them into a dramatic narrative: that they are aggrieved victims, part of a nation weakened by a dangerous element and in need of purification.” – Omer Aziz www.christiancentury.org/features/whe...

“@austinchanning.bsky.social’s Full of Myself goes even deeper than her 2018 bestseller I’m Still Here, as she writes about her encounters with systems of marginalization in the most intimate of spaces.” – review by Destiny Magnett: www.christiancentury.org/books/self-p...

“I suspect that rationality is freighted with many of the same problems as empathy. How someone presents information changes how I understand the ethical stakes of a decision.” – Melissa Florer-Bixler www.christiancentury.org/voices/what-...

“Silence serves a purpose but also has consequences. Silence on this divisive, deeply personal issue protects us from conflict and disagreement, but it also prevents us from telling stories that heal.” – Laura Lasuertmer www.christiancentury.org/features/dor...

“Christian nationalists aren’t wrong to claim that Christianity was extraordinarily influential in the founding and throughout American history. But what they offer in tribute to that influence is a thin gruel of Bible fan fiction.” – Ben Dueholm www.christiancentury.org/voices/relig...

“Debbie Hines’s book is at its strongest when it’s tying together the compounding effect that systemic racism has at each stage of the criminal justice process . . . ” – review by Chris Hammer www.christiancentury.org/books/what-c...

“Those in power have stoked White Christian nationalist fervor, which is embraced by some who are eager for a story of innocent American foundations. But the truth always abides.” – Stephanie Perdew www.christiancentury.org/voices/ameri...

“In the stories told by these women’s tattoos, we glimpse a novel perspective on Thomas’s reaction to the risen Christ’s stigmata (John 20:24–30). We might call this perspective a tattoo hermeneutic.” – Adam Toler www.christiancentury.org/features/etc...

“There’s a Korean phrase, hwa-yang-yeon-hwa, that I believe shines a light on Augustine’s theology where English phrases fail.” – Jessica Lee www.christiancentury.org/features/aug...

“For most of early American history, the folks leading the Rededicate 250 effort would have been viewed as heretics, worthy of suppression. If there was a Christian America, they would not have been included.” – Steven Waldman www.christiancentury.org/features/who...

“The insurance gap—that is, between the market value of a property and its total insurance payout—created a perverse incentive for landlords to burn down their own buildings.” – Brooklyne Oliveira reviews @benchansfield.bsky.social @wwnorton.com

“I still want to dress up for church. When we have a choice, our choice of clothes can convey our attitudes, our personal beliefs, and our sense of self.” – Pamela A. Lewis www.christiancentury.org/features/doe...

“I have to remind myself when I’m listening to a testimony, or hearing the stories of young men in prison, or going alongside someone unpacking their divorce—whenever I find myself asking, ‘What really happened?’ I have to remind myself that it doesn’t really matter.” – Julian DeShazier

“Are we really to imagine that God has created people with a glad heart for cleaning toilets precisely equivalent in number to the toilets for which the world demands cleanliness?” – Matt Gaventa www.christiancentury.org/article/chur...

“What can it mean to call myself an American now? What can it mean to call myself a Christian? Two recent books have challenged me on these questions: Amanda Tyler’s How to End Christian Nationalism and Drew Strait’s Strange Worship.” – Cynthia R. Wallace www.christiancentury.org/books/practi...

Historian Pamela Nadell traces antisemitism in the US from the colonial era to today—and the Jewish resilience that has risen to meet it every time. A new review by Robert Cathey: www.christiancentury.org/books/antise... @wwnorton.com

“What do people—whether patriarchal firebrands like Douglas Wilson or our own clergy, legislators, colleagues, and neighbors—actually mean when they say that something is traditional?” – Jennifer Kaalund www.christiancentury.org/online-colum...

“Being back among Baptists allowed me to see something that continued to live in my faith long after I left them: a profound belief and expectation that God moves in our lives.” – Brian Bantum www.christiancentury.org/voices/home-...

“The question is not whether AI should be resisted or embraced, but whether communities of faith will assume responsibility for how human judgment, spirituality, moral imagination, and meaning-making are formed in its presence.” – Uriah Kim www.christiancentury.org/features/wha...

“Every time a part of scripture is translated and people in that language begin to read and use that translation, Christians meet God in a new language, through a new cultural mindset, in a new way.” – Jost Zetzsche www.christiancentury.org/features/wha...

“We can orient our decisions within the love of God, which, unlike our emotions or rationality, is not constrained by scarcity. Love is drawn from an inexhaustible well.” – @melissaf-b.bsky.social www.christiancentury.org/voices/what-...

A multisensory, embodied approach to worship works well for many people with disabilities—and for everyone else. Melissa Florer-Bixler interviews Bill Gaventa and Jason Le Shana about the Disability Ministry Network’s resource Worship for the Whole Body. www.christiancentury.org/interviews/g...

“When clergy sexual abuse happens under conditions of immigration precarity, the injury is not only sexual violence—it is a betrayal of refuge. The church, meant to be a sanctuary of protection, becomes a site of threat.” – AHyun Lee www.christiancentury.org/features/bet...

Angela Buchdahl writes honestly about her accomplishments, her hardest moments, and the routine difficulties of showing up in Jewish spaces with a Korean face. A new review from Beth Kissileff www.christiancentury.org/books/rabbi-...

“Elizabeth Shakman Hurd wrestles with the possibility that the ideas enshrined in the borders of the United States have become such acts of political theology that they should be classified as a bipartisan religion.” – review by Stephanie Saldaña @uchicagopress.bsky.social

“This work, a collaboration between Brazilian artist Elaine Arruda and naval carpenter Mestre João Aires, marks an intervention in the city as a vessel that carries ancestral knowledge across water, wood, bodies, histories, and public life.” – art commentary by Yohana A. Junker

“Disability theologians have seen in the puzzling biblical data a call to reassess our notions of perfection.” – Aaron Brian Davis www.christiancentury.org/features/sca...

“The theocratic approach was soundly rejected by the Founding Fathers—and the driving force behind that rejection was 18th-century evangelicals, the very ancestors of today’s Christian nationalist movement.” – Steven Waldman www.christiancentury.org/features/who...

Winning the top prize for Opinion at the Associated Church Press awards, Mac Loftin’s essay considers the flip side of Christian Nationalism: “nationalist Christianity.” www.christiancentury.org/features/bla...

“The existential questions David Byrne asks have stuck with me for a quarter of a century.” – @christhiessen.bsky.social www.christiancentury.org/features/mus...

“There is an age-old Jewish custom of people with children drafting a spiritual or ethical will (tzava’ot). The exercise is similar to writing an obituary, except that it’s often edited multiple times over the decades instead of initiated as an end-of-life project.” – Peter W. Marty

“Louisiana v. Callais defanged Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which had long protected Black voters from district maps that dilute their power.” – the Century editors www.christiancentury.org/editors/gutt...

“There are simply so many ways that human beings can be wonderful, and I am stuck over here, admiring all of them, covetous of all of them.” – @philipchristman.bsky.social www.christiancentury.org/voices/other...

“Something new can come into the world through our hands. It does not require the perfect tool or a mentor or a class or even a YouTube video with one million views.” – @brianbantum.bsky.social www.christiancentury.org/voices/saved...

“It is astonishing how much emotion Muia can compel from stark scenes among stark people in a stark landscape.” – review by Amy Frykholm www.christiancentury.org/books/muia-w... (@ugapress.bsky.social)

“The danger is not that AI will replace human thinking. The danger is that humans will mistake fluency for understanding, patterns for meaning, and speed for wisdom.” – Uriah Kim www.christiancentury.org/features/wha...

The founder of the church growth movement was full to bursting with intercultural adaptation and anti-racist struggle. How did he become the darling of White segregationist Christians? A new feature essay from @polyglotevangel.bsky.social: www.christiancentury.org/features/don...

“This is not quite a narration of a historical event, not quite a prediction of the future, but a description of how the world was and is and will be. There’s always a Herod; there’s always a Rachel.” – Mac Loftin www.christiancentury.org/online-colum...

Another big winner at the Associated Church Press awards, this piece from Anna Keating took home the top prize for personal essays. And it is timely once more, as an appeals court recently ruled that the trans military ban is unconstitutional. www.christiancentury.org/features/acc...

“He had been recently fired from his job. He had hit the figurative bottom. Then he hit the ground.” — Harriet Riley, one of the winning essayists in our Readers Write series sponsored by the Frederick Buechner Center. www.christiancentury.org/readers-writ...

“In Bethlehem, where I am writing this, it is largely quiet, save for explosions and sirens in the distance. We shelter in place, and I often remind myself to look out the window. On some days, looking out the window feels like a prayer.” – @stephsaldana.bsky.social

“Rage farming, algorithmically curated outrage, has trained our bodies to react before we perceive. We scroll past faces. We sort humans into threats and allies before we have met them.” – C. Andrew Doyle www.christiancentury.org/features/ami...

“We were curious about how existing multisensory worship experiences were developed for disability inclusion and how this impacted the culture of worship for the whole church.” – Bill Gaventa @melissaf-b.bsky.social interviews Gaventa and Jason Le Shana. www.christiancentury.org/interviews/g...

“What disorients me most is not simply our political, cultural, and ideological division. It is something deeper and more troubling: a crisis of human decency.” – Kelly Brown Douglas www.christiancentury.org/voices/house...

Angela Buchdahl writes honestly about her accomplishments, her hardest moments, and the routine difficulties of showing up in Jewish spaces with a Korean face. A new review from Beth Kissileff: www.christiancentury.org/books/rabbi-...

“Reading your column, I realized that I’m not the only one talking about the death of Christ without bringing up appeasement or substitution as an explanation.” Read all the thoughtful responses published in our June issue: www.christiancentury.org/letters-comm...

“For preachers who are as convinced as I am that Jesus was adamant about care for vulnerable people, I have a few modest proposals to offer regarding preaching method.” – Peter W. Marty www.christiancentury.org/first-words/...

“Some might suggest that ears are supposed to hear and that their failure to do so is an impairment, regardless of whether it causes negative effects in day-to-day life. But that presupposes a lot. Who or what determines what human bodies are for?” – @aaronbriandavis.bsky.social