John Buchanan

Scripture assures us that “we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” But pastors and lay leaders end up spending a lot of time fussing with the church struc...

Like many ministers, I used the popularity of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ to focus attention in the church on what we believe about Jesus Christ....

Martin Marty once noted that there comes a time when you confront the depressing reality that you’re probably not going to read all the books you hoped and planned to read....

This magazine has long straddled the world of religion and politics, convinced that political awareness and engagement are part of faithful Christian living....

In discussing two books on the new apocalypticism, Jason Byassee confesses that he failed as a pastor to know what his people were re...

In Elisabeth Sifton’s The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Times of Peace and War, the author describes how Reinhold Niebuhr, her father, moved away from the pacifism that preva...

Along with other folks at the Christian Century, I saw The Passion of the Christ at a special screening hosted by the Chicago branch of the American Jewish Committee, whose offices are in th...

A good friend of mine dropped out of seminary, entered the business world, became a successful executive recruiter and migrated finally to management consulting, at which he is an expert....

Several years ago I was part of a discussion of theological education which tackled two sets of questions: First, what skills does one need in order to be an effective clergyperson?...

References to Robert Putnam have turned up in many sermons in recent years, including my own, because of a timely observation he made, one that immediately resonated with pastors as both true and i...

My morning reading the other day included four texts on sex and marriage that I carefully pondered: Dennis O’Brien’s thoughtful essay—which is published in this issue—expressing reservations about ...

These are difficult times for people who value the unity of the church....

This magazine lost a good friend and strong supporter when former U.S. Senator Paul Simon died on December 9. He was a member of the Century’s board of trustees and he read each issue carefully....

The reflections on John Updike’s work in this issue sent me to my shelves in search of a particular Updike story that I read long ago...

My gratitude for Advent has deepened over the years. I welcome the shorter days, and love the way the angled light of late November and early December makes everything look different....

The articles in this issue set me pondering the great and significant people in my life. And I recalled a remarkable lecture I heard years ago by the late Carlyle Marney....

An exasperated parishioner once wrote me a note explaining that my references to sports in sermons were not effective for her and, in fact, were increasingly irritating....

One of the difficult decisions, and sometimes compromises, ministers regularly make involves conducting funerals and memorial services for people who are not members of the congregation....

At one of our church’s weekly staff meetings the youth minister said he had a problem and needed his colleagues’ advice....

There was a time when people lived without clocks. They awakened, ate, played, slept in a rhythm maintained by the seasons and the rising and setting of the sun....