Steve Thorngate
Glee's very special episode on faith
I've never liked show choir, but I love Glee. Not primarily for the singing or dancing, though each is sometimes great....
George Hunsinger's runners-up
Suppose someone who hasn't
been keeping up with theology for the past 25 years now wants to read the most
...
The secular harp
I used to work at the Old Town School of Folk Music, the nation's largest community arts school....
The indifferent majority
So most Jews know where Jesus was born, even though few Christians know
much about Buddhism. Jesus makes the cover of one general-interest
magazine or another ever month or so, and it only takes a couple
shopping trips between Thanksgiving and New Year's to accidentally
memorize the words to "O Little Town of Bethlehem."
Colbert's testimony
When the United Farm Workers announced their “Take Our Jobs”
campaign this summer, I put it in my “maybe blog about this” folder and
never came back to it. It’s a clever idea—legal residents are invited
to replace migrant farm workers in the field—but the news media didn’t write a whole lot about it then, either. They are today.
Real reform, today
During the health-care reform debate, those who opposed the reform bill talked a lot about how it was impossible to understand, how it wouldn’t do anything tangible for ordinary Americans and...
The new Century blog
Welcome to the Christian Century's new blog, to which we've given the more-descriptive-than-catchy name "Century blog." This replaces our old blog ...
Islamophobia by the numbers
According to a Quinnipiac University poll, 54 percent of New York State voters agree "that because of American freedom of religion, Muslims have the right to build the mosque near Ground Zero." That strikes me as a shockingly small majority—almost half don’t feel that “religious freedom” by definition applies to all religions, even when the question’s put that way?—but hey, glad to hear of majority support for basic American principles, right?
What's a "top college"?
Maybe it’s because I need easily digestible print reading for my train
commute. Maybe it’s my inevitable post-20s loss of hipster cred.
Whatever the reason, I seem to be reading a lot less of the humor
writing at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and a lot more of Joel Stein’s Time column.
Richard Land spins the golden rule
My summary of Land's position: Following the golden rule, like taking public transit,
benefits us most when other people do it so we don’t have to.
New to the CCblogs network
There are a number of new bloggers in the CCblogs network. Drop by and check them out:
...Is inclusive language on the decline?
The National Council of Churches’ Justice for Women Working Group is
initiating a conversation about inclusive language in worship and
...
The undead religious right
The religious right, as you may have heard, is dead. Its death has been
pronounced every so often for years. Meanwhile, it manages to continue
...
Virtually tangible?
In the tireless (and sometimes tiresome) debates over social media, I
come down pretty firmly on the “pro” side. Of course, that doesn’t mean
...
The songs I hate to love
A post last week by Century contributing editor Jason Byassee raised a...
Tough calls
This summer, my divinity-student wife is doing a unit of clinical pastoral education.
...
An ad that targets bigots
The National Republican Trust PAC has a new TV spot about the Cordoba House controversy,...
"That would be like if Christians went places and built churches"
I always enjoy watching Jon Stewart go after Fox News. Sure, it’s like
shooting fish in a barrel, but when the shooter’s hilarious and the
...
The traditional passion play, now with less antisemitism
This summer, a small Bavarian town’s life is consumed by community theater. It’s time again for the Oberammergau Passion Play, produced once a decade since the 17th century....