Violence
Did Christianity destroy classical pagan culture?
Catherine Nixey is right: the early Christians were violently destructive. So were the Romans, the Persians, and the plagues that swept across the ancient world.
Parents of slain UN worker seek justice for their son, peace for the Congo
Michael J. Sharp had been investigating violence in the Congo when he was killed one year ago.
From inertia to (small) action
Mai-Anh Le Tran bravely jumps into the space where theory meets practice.
by Kat Banakis
Flannery O'Connor's demonic characters bear witness to Christ
If O'Connor's stories are shocking, that's only because the gospel is, too.
A novel for frightening times
Han Kang’s main theme is the dignity and the cowardice that atrocity brings forth from people—often the same person.
Robots of the West
Westworld’s claim is that memory leads to consciousness, which leads to violence.
True witness, absurd violence
Pope Francis’s response to the killing of a French priest puzzled some. But it pointed to the true nature of Christian witness.
Reckoning with racism
Why does the church participate in modern-day lynching, or at most turn a blind eye, rather than protesting as our faith would dictate?
Borderline, by Stan Goff
The media have been ablaze with stories of police brutality, campus rape, military conflict, and mass murder. Stan Goff insists on a single thread: masculinity.
reviewed by Kathryn Blanchard
United in suffering: Martyrdom as Christian vocation
Are the rest of us so different from our brothers and sisters in Libya or in Charleston? Are they heroes with whom we can never identify?
Claims on Bonhoeffer: The misuse of a theologian
People appeal to Bonhoeffer to justify a range of moral choices. They tend to ignore his emphasis on context and the need for constant discernment.
Seventy years since the war ended—and continued
The current issue of the Century features a remembrance by my mother of my grandfather’s terrifying war experience and its unfolding consequences. Tomorrow the world marks the 70th anniversary of V-E Day, when the world-shaping trauma of the war halted in Europe. My grandfather’s story is only a tiny fragment of the war, his decades of agony only a ripple in its billowing aftershocks. But it is the kind of story that is easily lost as the war recedes from living memory.
War without end: For my father, WW2 was never over
In 1998, I drove my parents from Wisconsin to Georgia to visit the new National POW Museum. My siblings couldn't believe I'd agreed to this.
Good Friday and the stories of Jesus
May we not domesticate the Jesus story for our own religious comfort, but in telling the story, and doing so truthfully, may we worship our crucified Christ and encounter his delivering presence, and therefore be transformed after the image of God.
Religious violence? The politics of a higher law
Throughout history, people loyal to a higher law have been responsible for much violence. Should we reject appeals to a higher law?
by Ted A. Smith
Even a necessary evil is evil
Some people see violence as an absolute wrong. Others see it as a sometimes necessary evil, with considerable variation as to just how often these times come up. I’m at the dovish end of the latter group: I believe that there are times—not many, not remotely as many as American foreign policy consensus or law enforcement norms would have it, but some times—when a violent action might be the least-bad available option.
But a necessary evil isn’t a virtue; “least bad” doesn’t mean “good.”
What "we" shall overcome?
At the vigil for Ferguson, I stumbled over singing "We Shall Overcome." I have remarkably little, personally, to overcome in my life.
Hate crime
We are endlessly being misdirected in search of the crude “hate crime.” After centuries of racial oppression and violence, our society eventually became uncomfortable with the overtness of the racism of the past. Slavery is taken for granted as a horrific thing, something that couldn’t be assumed a few generations ago. For mainstream America, to be accused of being racist is to have been labeled something despicable. Few would willingly accept this charge upon themselves, defending themselves adamantly against such accusations. However, even worse than the racist label for those within the dominant culture, is for a person to be accused of a hate crime. Hate crimes have been created to isolate the most heinous of offenses that have been committed because of prejudice.
Don't put down the camera
As church leaders, we have our ears, hearts, and words. We pray that God will use them. But we also have limitations--time, energy, and ability. And even though we feel helpless, like we can never do enough, sometimes being the person who takes the picture, who tells the story is our most important job.