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New today from the Century: July 4 and war sermons, bearing ironic witness, the Bible in English lit, more.

"With today’s agreement, progressives can refocus their criticisms of Pritzker on her family’s use of offshore tax shelters."

Biblical material pervades the works of English literature. Bible stories have been retold, recast and reinterpreted....

The Americans is more than a spy show. It explores how a hidden identity is hard to nourish—and an identity embodied in habit is harder to disavow.

c. 2013 Religion News Service...

The abuse of women is “the most pervasive and unaddressed human rights violation on Earth” and too often justified in the name of religion, former president Jimmy Carter said at a June 27–29 confer...

When I was in high school I was fascinated with the field of evolutionary psychology....

I spent last week on a rural island in Wisconsin, where the Century was cosponsoring the Wisconsin Council of Churches' annual summer forum. It was a great event. It was also a pretty momentous news week, and there I was away from the office and mostly offline. Since returning I've been taken aback by just how much more ink the Supreme Court's Defense of Marriage Act decision has gotten than its Voting Rights Act decision.

New today from the Century: Beth Felker Jones on The Americans, Carol Howard Merritt on wrestling with faith, more.

Most spiritual leaders have wrestled with faith. Most of your pastors and most of the people that you look up to have questioned their faith and doubted God. It’s just that when we do it, we call it fancy, poetic things, like, “The dark night of the soul.”

"We are the 99 percent" was a brilliant rallying cry. But those five words were Occupy's essential contribution, and they came at the start.

c. 2013 Religion News Service...

A California judge has ruled that the teaching of yoga in public schools does not establish a government interest in religion....

This week's Living by the Word column focuses on the story of the healing of Naaman the Aramean, one of the most dramatic healing stories in the Bible. But here I want to blog about a small detail of that story as it relates to the other lessons.

New today from the Century: Doug Rossinow on why Occupy failed, Kathy Grieb blogs the lectionary, more.

Conflict can be destructive, constructive or even transformative depending on how leaders respond to it....

My hope is that those of us who rely on the Century today will create the financial strength to guarantee that there will be a Century in the future.

The Obama administration has issued final rules for religious groups for its controversial contraception mandate, maintaining its position on who qualifies for religious exemption and allowing no c...

Two weeks ago, I was in my office getting ready for worship when a church member stopped by with a cherry tomato. A small, single tomato, which he handed to me....

Yes, I’m the pastor. Yes, I’ve been praying the prayer since childhood. Yes, I lead the prayer every Sunday. Still, it was bound to happen....