![The Christian Century](/themes/custom/christian_century/logo-mobile.png)
![The Christian Century](/themes/custom/christian_century/logo-desktop.png)
Since 1900, the Christian Century has published reporting, commentary, poetry, and essays on the role of faith in a pluralistic society.
© 2023 The Christian Century.
The coronavirus is helping us rehearse for our own deaths
“A lot of people want to talk about the big questions; they just don’t know how to get started.”
Liuan Huska interviews Lydia Dugdale
Death and the grace of “it is finished”
At a recent funeral, some churchgoers were surprised by my choice of texts.
Four years after my mother died, we still haven’t scattered her ashes
They’re in a plastic bag in my closet.
We’re all going to die. Why is it so hard to talk about it?
Most of us don’t fear death so much as the process leading up to it.
A black pastor writes to the white church about its complicity in oppression
Lenny Duncan’s letter is full of hope and fury, love and lament—like Paul’s epistles.
by Tim Brown
Jesus wept. Why?
Maybe Jesus’ tears at Bethany come from more than grief.
Take & read: New books in Old Testament
Climate catastrophe, economic inequality, and the way we treat our dead
selected by Amy Erickson
A life worth living, but for how long?
In their new novels, Dara Horn and Chloe Benjamin play with themes of mortality and free will.
Poetry and transience
National Poetry Month is over, but there's plenty of good poetry to get us through the next 11 months.
People don't "pass away"
Imagine talking about birth the way we talk about death.
A call to death
One gift of being a pastor is that death stands right in front of us. We understand that our days are numbered.
Princeton Theological Seminary's farm grows food. But this isn't the main point.
Part history and part memoir, this volume gently immerses readers in Jewish traditions surrounding death.
For career day at my daughter's school, I brought pictures of some of the things pastors do. The students were mostly interested in the funerals.
I knew Jannie Swart's witness would have a lasting impact on our seminary. I didn't anticipate how it would challenge me in the classroom.
Whether we're dying or living with grief, there are faithful ways to do so. Marilyn Chandler McEntyre points us in the right direction.
The Totentatz window was created soon after the Shoah but with no reference to the city's murdered Jews. Two of them were my grandparents.
Modern medicine makes it difficult to die. Often, treatment seems to prolong not living so much as dying. With no earthly hope, Regan was spared all this.