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January 4, 2017

Volume 134, Issue #1

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Features

Interviews

Artists on the inside

The Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan

Amy Frykholm interviews Ashley Lucas and Philip Christman

First Person

Holy crumbs for a holy world

As the children make their way out the door, trails of leftover communion bread go with them.

by Melissa Florer-Bixler

Readers Write

Power: Essays by readers

We gave our readers a one-word writing prompt: "power."

Books

At home in exile

In a time of American inhospitality, Jan Holton offers a compelling vision.

by Walter Brueggemann

The joy of things and the trap of excess

An ethicist and an anthropologist ask: How much is too much?

by Lee Hull Moses

Bioethics and the good-enough death

Dying poses hard questions about autonomy.

by Sarah Moses

The ones that got away

As CC books editor, I get to peruse a lot of books. Too bad I can’t review them all.

by Elizabeth Palmer

Stories from a glacier-shaped landscape

If you’re new to Rick Bass’s edgy, glorious, and often brutal settings, this collection is a perfect place to start.

by Harold K. Bush

Departments

Church in the Making

Shared space, shared vision

In Asheville, one church was dying while another was being born.

by Carol Howard Merritt

On Art

Crucifixion, by Matthias Grünewald

Matthias Grünewald (ca. 1480–1528) painted the Crucifixion as a panel for the Isenheim Altarpiece in the hospital chapel of St. Anthony’s monastery....

Art selection and commentary by Heidi J. Hornik and Mikeal C. Parsons

First Words

What drives hate?

Hate isn’t new, but it does appear to be thriving.

by Peter W. Marty

Faith Matters

Why I worry about the pastors of politically divided churches

In our current political climate, the preacher struggles to say something both unifying and prophetic.

by M. Craig Barnes

On Media

Robots of the West

Westworld’s claim is that memory leads to consciousness, which leads to violence.

by Kathryn Reklis

From the Editors

The virtues we need in a post-truth world

Telling the truth requires more than right thinking. It requires being a particular sort of person.

News

Studies reveal how faith counts in placing spiritual before material goods

New studies are revealing the ways members of different global faiths may transcend—or fall prey to—consumer cultures willing to co-opt even their most sacred festivals to move merchandise....

by David Briggs

Moroccans protest after monarchy, Muslim party fail to deliver on reform

Morocco, held up as a model for reform in the wake of the Arab Spring, is slipping back into autocracy....

by Taylor Luck

People

Gary Dorrien wins award for book on black Social Gospel

Gary Dorrien, professor of social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, won the 2017 Grawemeyer Award in religion for his book The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel....

by Christian Century staff

People

Cristo Perez offers insights on indigenous spirituality and the harm of landmines in Colombia

Cristo Perez wishes he had listened to the bird. If he had heeded its warning, he might not have stepped on a land mine that day three years ago....

by Nubia Rojas

Muslim clerics disappearing near Kenya-Somalia border

As Kenyan coastal region sheikhs, imams, and preachers vanish in alleged killings and forced disappearances, their wives are demanding answers. The clerics have disappeared or died after security service involvement....

by Fredrick Nzwili

People

John Glenn, astronaut and Presbyterian elder, dies at age 95

John H. Glenn Jr., best known as the first American to orbit the earth, who was also a lifelong Presbyterian, died December 8 in Columbus, Ohio, at age 95....

by Gregg Brekke

Freed Iraqi Christians tell of life under the IS

When Christians fled the small town of Bartella in August 2014 as militants from the self-declared Islamic State swept toward them, 14-year-old Ibrahim Matti and his elderly mother stayed behind....

by Kristen Chick

After coup attempt, Turkey cracks down on Protestants

After a weeklong business trip in the U.K., American pastor Ryan Keating was detained at the Istanbul airport overnight, interrogated, and then put on a plane back to London....

by Dominique Bonessi

Yemen’s Bahá’ís keep faith amid conflict, crackdown

For 11 days in August, Ruhiyeh Thabet al-Sakkaf and Nafheh Sanai al-Sakkaf shared a jacket and a damp cell at Yemen’s National Security Bureau after armed officers stormed a multifaith youth event the sisters-in-law were leading and arrested 65 me...

by Brian Pellot

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany calls for a ban of burqas as election nears

In accepting her party’s nomination for a fourth term in office, German chancellor Angela Merkel delivered a speech that took aim at conservative critics of her liberal asylum policies, yet also embraced a proposal to ban the burqa....

by David Iaconangelo and Jabeen Bhatti

People

HIV-positive Anglican priest in Kenya works to change AIDS response

In a community where AIDS is still viewed as a death sentence, Rahab Wanjiru is working to build an HIV-aware church....

by Fredrick Nzwili

Lectionary

January 29, Fourth Sunday after Epiphany (Matthew 5:1–12)

I don’t like this. When I mourn I want to not mourn anymore.

by T. Denise Anderson

January 22, Third Sunday after Epiphany

Matthew 4:12–23

by T. Denise Anderson

Poetry

The still pilgrim considers a hard teaching

by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell

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