Celeste Kennel-Shank
Race and riots in my hometown and in my grandfather's
My hometown and my grandfather’s were the site of riots connected to race and law enforcement.
Please do not stand for the next hymn
As I came down the escalator at the library, the man in front of me apologized when he saw that I had stopped behind him. He gently moved his cane-carrying companion over to one side, apologized again, and motioned me past.
Years ago, I might not have thought twice about it. Now, having a family member for whom movements such as standing up can be painful because of degenerative arthritis has made me more aware—perhaps nowhere more so than at church.
Oscar Romero's grain of wheat
This month in 1980, the Salvadoran archbishop was assassinated—shortly after preaching on John 12.
Fred B. Craddock, preeminent preacher, dies at age 86
Fred B. Craddock, a preeminent teacher and practitioner of preaching, died March 6 at age 86 in Blue Ridge, Georgia. He had been ill with Parkinson’s disease.
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I get vaccines not because I’m certain they’re 100% harmless. I get them so other people won’t die.
Medicine always involves trade-offs. With vaccines, we’re not just weighing them for ourselves.
Ferguson pastor, scholar address ongoing struggle against racism
Pastor F. Willis Johnson captured national attention last August after Mike Brown, an unarmed teenager, was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri....
The Layman, critical Presbyterian voice, ceases print publication
The newspaper published by the Presbyterian Lay Committee, The Layman, ceased printing at the end of 2014, but the PLC will continue to provide information and resources online and plans...
All people die with dignity
What troubles me greatly about Oregon’s law—and the movement for more like it—is its name.
Amid drought, churches draw together
In what is supposed to be the harvest season, many parts of California are feeling the effects of the drought that has raged for most of the year.
...Babies at risk
Singing “Nothing Is Lost on the Breath of God” in church recently, my mind called up the face and tiny body of the most ...
Seminary faculty, dean at impasse
Nearly the entire full-time faculty at the Episcopal Church’s oldest seminary is battling with the school’s leadership, although the sides do not agree on whether the professors quit, were fired, o...
UCC investment fund will be free of fossil fuels
The United Church of Christ’s investment arm is launching a fund this fall that is free of fossil fuel extraction and production companies—possibly the first such fund based in a Christian denomina...
10 books worth the return visit
The books I've read repeatedly are the ones that have probed my heart and expanded my vision.
4 true confessions of a truly bivocational minister
A few months ago I wrote about the difference between having two jobs and two vocations. A commenter wondered, "What if you really do have two callings?” I’ve been doing bivocational ministry in one way or another for the past seven years. Overall I have found having two vocations—I serve as a hospital chaplain in addition to being a Century editor—to be fruitful and fulfilling. But I have to confess that it isn’t easy.
Do I have to take Isaiah 58:7 literally?
A particular verse of scripture has been haunting me lately. I hear it as an indictment of an aspect of my personal life.
First, it was a lectionary text in Epiphany. Then I found it in the unifying passage of a devotional book I read.
“Bring the homeless poor into your house,” we read in Isaiah 58:7, part of a passage on genuine fasting.
Let the afterlife mystery be
In the days after my grandmother died, my aunts introduced me to Iris DeMent's song “Let the Mystery Be." As is true for many people, from the early years of Christian faith, the loss of one dear to me sparked wonderings about what happens after death. I have fuzzy, 15-year-old memories of one of my aunts thinking aloud about the possibility of reincarnation, and older family members assuring us all that my grandmother was sitting at the feet of Jesus.
Vincent Harding, a true hero
Vincent Harding combined his sensibilities as a historian and as a pastor. He called us, as individuals and as a nation, to face our weaknesses and learn from them.
Mixed and matched: Challenges of interfaith weddings
Interfaith couples can connect to their traditions and find commonality through symbols, such as a strand of rope that signifies unity and strength.
Prayers that question
Alden Solovy’s prayers touch on the times of life we most fear. He finds words for the moments in which most of us have only tears and groans.
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