Guest Post

The most popular subscriber-only articles of the year

Having a subscriber-only paywall in front of most of our magazine content allows us to put the whole issue online and sell online-only subscriptions. Among other advantages, online-only subscriptions are cheaper--especially for folks who don't live in the States and would have to pay extra postage for print-magazine delivery.

This arrangement does, however, mean the articles behind the paywall generally get less traffic than the free ones. With this in mind, here's a separate top-ten list of just the paid content--i.e., the most popular articles of the year that were read online only by Century subscribers. Thanks, all of you, for supporting us. (If you don't subscribe, please consider it.)

Here's the list:

  1. "Sacramental sex: Divine love and human intimacy," by Elizabeth Myer Boulton and Matthew Myer Boulton: "What if everything we taught our kids about sex were grounded in a vision of God’s love in everyday life?"
  2. "Missing the signs: The church and Gen Y," by Bradley N. Hill: "Most churches have the equivalent of Eat at Joe's signs, advertising
    religious services so that people will stop, come in and taste what is
    good. The signs are imperative; they command us to eat here and not
    there."
  3. "Betting on a generous God," by Peter W. Marty: "Rob Bell fights every impulse in our culture to domesticate Jesus, reminding
    readers that Christians do not believe in Christianity; they believe in
    the Christ who wants to "draw all people" to himself."
  4. "The bishop's dashboard: William Willimon's experiment in accountability," by Jason Byassee: "With William Willimon set to retire as bishop of the North Alabama Conference in
    2012, it is appropriate to consider how the Willimon experiment in the
    episcopacy has turned out. It has not been business
    as usual."
  5. "No common good? Moral community," by Gary Dorrien: "The common good is taking a beating. Economic inequality has accelerated
    dramatically since the early 1980s, and many think nothing can be done
    about it. But that verdict is a nonstarter for Christian morality."
  6. "Double belonging: One person, two faiths," by Amy Frykholm: "Americans have become accustomed to picking and choosing among religious
    traditions and practices. But some have taken religious pluralism in a
    deeper and more radical direction."
  7. "A friend in Jesus? Faith is not a personal relationship," by John Suk: "On a journey through North America, my wife and I
    attended many churches. At one the pastor insisted repeatedly that "the meaning and purpose of life is to have a
    personal relationship with Jesus." The claim irked me."
  8. "The case against Wall Street: Why the protesters are angry," by Gary Dorrien: "The protesters sleeping in the cold do not claim that 99 percent of
    Americans agree with them. Their point is that the top 1 percent plays
    by different rules."
  9. "Grief without stages," by Thomas G. Long: "The notion that grief moves through some kind of process toward
    resolution owes more of a debt to American optimism than to Christian
    hope."
  10. "Allah and the Trinity: A Christian response to Muslims," by Miroslav Volf: "The oneness of God is the principle at the very heart of Islam. This is
    the central issue for Muslims disputing Christian claims about God."

Steve Thorngate

The Century managing editor is also a church musician and songwriter.

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