“I never expected to be a dad. However much I’d have liked to, being openly gay foreclosed that route, at least according to the map charted by my Assemblies of God upbringing.”
– Mario Koym-Garza
www.christiancentury.org/features/my-...
“You never quite know a person until you’ve come face-to-face with what they’ve left behind.”
– Deadra Bachorik Ashton, a winner in our Readers Write essay contest, supported by the Frederick Buechner Center
www.christiancentury.org/readers-writ...
“Showing up as a movement chaplain is about going with a few other chaplains and working as a unit around the edges of a crowd at a protest to see who needs care. It’s about having a watchful presence.”
– @tkpcreates.bsky.social, in an interview by Jasmin Pittman
“These two books work as companion pieces, and I’m glad to have read them. Both @drewstrait.bsky.social and @amandatylerbjc.bsky.social root their discussions in wide-ranging research, but they add the important focus on concrete and actionable advice.”
– review by @cynthiarwallace.bsky.social
“My entry to the mainline came with hiccups, awkward moments, and growing pains. In retrospect, I realize that many of my fellow congregants assumed I automatically understood their church culture. (I didn’t.)”
– @michellevanloon.bsky.social
www.christiancentury.org/features/fou...
“I am not suggesting we give everyone carte blanche to degrade or harm one another. We can and should hold people accountable for their wounding words and actions. But accountability is not served by cancellation.”
– Brandon Ambrosino
www.christiancentury.org/features/ref...
“While churches vary widely, I have not given up hope that mainline congregations could serve as the community-building, justice-seeking, emotionally safe places that many exvangelical millennials are searching for.”
– Liz Cooledge Jenkins
www.christiancentury.org/features/rec...
“What is the role of theology in a time of war? I’m a theologian, but I don’t ask this question out of a desire for professional relevance. It’s a question of last resort, driven by an unavoidable feeling that political opposition to this war is a dead end.”
– Mac Loftin
“In online spaces, the steps of muting, speaking, muting again, pausing, and hearing from another offer the possibility that silence becomes a valued member of the group.”
– Stephanie Perdew
www.christiancentury.org/voices/givin...
“Judaism’s shift away from universalism came not through theological evolution but through historical trauma. After a series of failed revolts and the rise of Christianity as Rome’s state religion, laws were enacted that forbade Jewish proselytism.”
– Austin Reid Albanese
“Historically—even if we go back to biblical times—there are no clear borders to the land. As a consequence, the claim that the land of Israel is a fixed entity is simply not true.”
– Mordechai Beck
www.christiancentury.org/features/heb...
“Just as the Roman elite made efforts to systematize the erasure of an unwanted past—to create the illusion of a pure one—so the legislatures across our country are attempting to do the same.”
– Jennifer Kaalund
www.christiancentury.org/online-colum...
The latest in our Dear Pastors series is from Dawn Martin Hyde:
“There are people outside the church who are interested in maintaining neither a church building nor an institution that you helped build. But they may be interested in Jesus: in knowing him, in hearing what he does for people.”
“Authorized violence coarsens everyone it touches. We are undergoing moral trauma—all of us, on every side. This is why the church cannot speak casually about enforcement and security, as though they were morally neutral.”
– @texasbishop9.bsky.social
www.christiancentury.org/features/ami...
“As a trans person I am struck by how Jesus’ wilderness experience relies on inner convictions resisting an external voice.”
- @revrachelmann.bsky.social
www.christiancentury.org/article/jesu...
“Throughout the New Testament these warnings appear: Do not be deceived; Be vigilant; Grow up in discernment; Test what you hear. These admonitions were not about paranoia. They were about maturity.”
– Jennifer Kaalund
www.christiancentury.org/online-colum...
“As a biracial woman from the South who grew up in fundamentalist Christianity, I’m often attuned to a different America than the one most established scholars seem to inhabit. The scholar who mentored me was attuned to a world beyond my reach and welcome.”
– Emily Hunt-Hinojosa
“It was probably just a coincidence that I was singing a Newsboys song with Flamy Grant on the night I would learn about Michael Tait’s misdeeds. But I think there is something important in the contrast between these two artists.”
– McKenzie Watson-Fore
www.christiancentury.org/features/sin...
As history repeats itself, so does the relevance of some essays. Here is a piece responding to last year’s bombing of Iran, by Stanley Hauerwas and @texasbishop9.bsky.social.
www.christiancentury.org/features/chu...
“How do I love my neighbor across the street whose house is adorned with MAGA signs? Does that differ from how I love my neighbor with a multicolored Pride flag?”
– @amarpeterman.bsky.social
www.christiancentury.org/features/com...
“The halftime show was political at a deeper register than mere confrontation.”
– Ricky Padilla
www.christiancentury.org/features/dan...
“Moving from theological to historical thinking may have saved my faith.”
– Peter Choi
www.christiancentury.org/voices/remem...
“What struck me throughout Benito’s performance was that the joy the performers shared was a rich and deep joy that erupts from being rooted in a particular place and having profound love for its people and culture.”
– @christhiessen.bsky.social
www.christiancentury.org/features/bad...
“I think Gen Z is listening to the music of Geese because those apocalyptic, heady songs speak to the atmosphere of dread and violence that has surrounded all of our lives.”
– @crbernasol.bsky.social, on Geese and its lead singer Cameron Winter
www.christiancentury.org/online-colum...
“At a time when fascism looms ever more menacingly and state violence against the vulnerable is again dramatically unmasked, our rituals must be a place to practice belonging . . . ”
– Emilee Walker-Cornetta
www.christiancentury.org/features/for...
“Louise Fago-Ruskin turned to the camera in her 30s in order to document and analyze her life in a moment of profound rupture as she left a fundamentalist church where she had been a dedicated member for two decades.”
– Art commentary from Aaron Rosen: www.christiancentury.org/art/louise-f...
“Scars I’d almost forgotten, cut by the conviction that I’d failed God’s design, opened again, seeping corrosive doubts about virility, procreation, and succession. The story I thought I’d been given to tell—of God’s love made manifest in my queer family—was being rewritten.”
– Mario Koym-Garza
Our free newsletter Taste & Read sets the table for a hearty conversation about food and faith. It seeks to nourish your mind, body, and spirit. Featuring theological reflections, highlights from Century archives, and even the occasional recipe or two.
www.christiancentury.org/taste-read-e...
“I can imagine myself using the 45-page study guide in the back of the book as a resource for faith communities eager to wrestle together with what difference the cross of Christ makes for believing people.”
– Peter Marty reviews @hannareichel.bsky.social
@eerdmansbooks.bsky.social
Some ex-Evangelicals find their way into Mainline congregations. Here's a piece I wrote with some suggestions about how these congregations can better welcome these people: www.christiancentury.org/features/fou...
