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March 24, 2021

Volume 138, Issue #6
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Features

Reflection

Holy Saturday in a harrowing time

Christ harrows hell, and nowhere are we beyond the hand that holds that harrow.

by Marilyn McEntyre

Critical Essay

Why I’ve come back around to substitutionary atonement

Sometimes sacrifice is an act of love.

by Martha Tatarnic

Interviews

Preaching Holy Week in the middle of a pandemic—again

Usually it takes courage to preach Good Friday. This year, it will take courage to proclaim “He is risen!” on Easter morning.

a conversation between Richard Lischer and William H. Willimon

Interviews

Telling the story of The Black Church PBS documentary

“The church, as wonderful as it has been, has been a very difficult place for some people.”

Katara Patton interviews Stacey L. Holman

First Person

I want to talk to Thomas Merton about race

Merton has been my spiritual companion, but as a Black woman, I have questions for him.

by Sophfronia Scott

First Person

A meditation on Jazz during Lent

We are flakes of snow; we are notes vanishing in the air.

by L. Roger Owens

Books

Is privilege real or imagined?

Sociologist Matthew Clair explores race and class at work in the criminal court system.

by Chris Hammer

Henry Louis Gates celebrates the Black church through history and stories

The companion book to the PBS series is accessible, comprehensive, and joyful.

by Erica L. Brown

What does the Mississippi Delta sound like in verse?

Philip Kolin’s poetry is about juke joints, bluesmen, mosquitoes, ladybugs, race, faith, and more.

by Jill Peláez Baumgaertner

Does faith promote human flourishing?

Yes and no, says the data.

by Emily Soloff

Departments

Faith Matters

Celebrating Easter on the anniversary of MLK’s death

The first Easter was a wrecked scene of dispirited disciples in the shadows of an insurrection.

by Debra Dean Murphy

From the Editors

Who is sacrificed, and who benefits?

Approaching Holy Week in the wake of a half million COVID-19 deaths
On Art

INRI, by Martinus Sumbaji

Beaches and scrap piles on his home island of Bali provide Martinus Sumbaji with the materials he needs to make weathered wood “faith boxes” like this portrait of Christ in his Passion....

art selection and comment by John Kohan

First Words

Six predictions for the post-pandemic church

It won’t look the same, but there’s potential for renewal.

by Peter W. Marty

Screen Time

The plot twist I wish Locked Down had

It’s a screwball comedy about pandemic life! Pandemic life without kids, that is.

by Kathryn Reklis

News

California church recognized for role in Chicano movement

Lydia Lopez was demonstrating in a picket line in 1968 to support Mexican American educator Sal Castro, who had been removed from the classroom after participating in student walkouts protesting racism in East LA schools, when UCLA professor Juan ...

by Alejandra Molina

When Texas froze, Muslim volunteers mobilized to help

Aliyah Muzamil, a single mother of two, was without electricity for three days and nights during Texas’s deep freeze last month. One night, the three of them slept in her car to keep warm. One day, they ran out of food....

by Zainab Iqbal

The faith leaders who helped bring about peace in Uganda

On February 4, the International Criminal Court found Dominic Ongwen, a trusted lieutenant in the Lord’s Resis­tance Army, guilty of 61 counts of murder, rape, sexual enslavement, and the “forced pregnancy” of women—a charge not previously lodged ...

by David A. Hoekema

After SCOTUS decision, Alabama allows spiritual advisers at executions

Alabama is amending its lethal injection procedures to allow a condemned inmate to have his spiritual adviser in the execution chamber, state lawyers wrote in a February 25 court filing....

by Kim Chandler

Grants to church food pantries promote 
relationships with local farmers, restaurants

A grant program for rural United Methodist Churches in North Carolina aims to help congregations see their food pantry ministries within the larger picture of hunger in America....

by Olivia Weeks

People

Marsha Scipio tapped to lead Baptist World Aid

Marsha Scipio has been named director of Baptist World Aid, the community development arm of the Baptist World Alliance....

by Dawn Araujo-Hawkins

People

Gospel Music Hall of Famer Carman dies at 65

Carmelo Domenic Licciardello, an evangelical performing artist known as Carman, died on February 16. He was 65....

by Bob Smietana

People

Candace M. Lewis is first woman to lead Gammon Theological Seminary

Candace M. Lewis has been named president-dean of Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlan­ta, the first woman to serve in that role in the school’s 138-year history....

by Dawn Araujo-Hawkins

Lectionary

April 11, Easter 2B (Acts 4:32-35; John 20:19-31)

Thomas gets so overwhelmed by Jesus’ presence that he ends up shelving the autopsy.

by Peter W. Marty

April 4, Easter Day B (Mark 16:1-8)

It’s Easter. Step into the future.

by Peter W. Marty

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