Guest Post

(RNS) Deah Barakat took my class “Islam in the Modern World” at North Carolina State University a few years ago. He was curious about Islamic history and contemporary spiritual and political movements, and he was great in class discussions. I’ve taught thousands of students in the last 11 years here, but Deah stood out for his enthusiasm, kindness, calm demeanor, and obvious charisma. Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha, and Razan Abu-Salha were the very best of people. 

Last month, I spent some time at the Sundance Film Festival. In a recent post, I noted the difference between marketing films to Christians and the possibility of film as a transformative space in the life of a Christian. Instead of imagining Christians as a set audience whose worldview we don’t want to disturb, I wonder if we could use Christianity’s specific theological language to enliven our understanding of film. Could Christianity’s theological lens illuminate elements of film that other cultural perspectives miss? Perhaps the best example of this possibility that I saw at Sundance came from watching the Justin Kelly film I am Michael.

Reporting from Iraq or Afghanistan, Darfur or Haiti, can be alluring and exciting. But the minute some people put on that flak jacket, something happens.

Langston Hughes challenged our consciousness by asking, “What happens to a dream deferred?” What results when hope, aspirations, callings, and promises are delayed, put off, postponed, or thwarted? Were they flawed expectations? Do such deferred dreams become burdensome desires that fade and never manifest, forever haunting us? Six months after Michael Brown was fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri—where I serve as a pastor—there are families still wrestling with the question, “What would have happened if...?”

Britain's House of Commons voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to legalize the creation of so-called "three-parent babies." Though advocates of the move say it will help prevent a debilitating and often lethal condition, many warn that the procedure, though well-intentioned, opens the door to ethical and safety questions that have yet to be sufficiently grappled with.

Our normally fractious media and political world has reached an item of consensus: vaccines against deadly diseases are good, and kids should get them. As the Disneyland measles outbreak has brought new attention to the issue of vaccine refusal, prominent politicians have been asked to state their views for the record. Most have obliged with unambiguous statements that vaccines—including the MMR shot, which was linked by a totally discredited study to the incidence of autism—are safe and should be universal. One outlier was Rand Paul, the libertarian senator from Kentucky, who has a tendency to shoot from the hip in just such situations.

2014 has been described as the year that Hollywood found faith. But if the first-ever panel on faith and film at the Sundance Film Festival is any indication, the discovery of theological depth is still quite a ways off.

“Political correctness,” the stifling culture of left-wing taboos around race, gender, and sexuality remembered from campus battles of the 1980s and 90s, “has returned.” So claims New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait in an essay that has sent the small tinderbox of progressive media into skyward sparks. According to Chait, this revival is heralded by hashtag activism, privilege-checking and calling out, strict policing of online and in-class language, “trigger warnings,” and bumptious student responses to commencement speakers. The consequences, he says, are dangerous.

Many people will remember Borg as the person who made space for them to return to—or remain in—the Christian faith. It's a wonderful irony.

The vast majority of Muslims in France hail from former colonies in Africa. Of all of the relationships, the one with Algeria is the most fraught.

Several of my friends found inspiration in Katherine Willis Pershey’s recent encomium to fidelity in the Century. But I felt a strong aversion to the article, a reaction that’s led me into a period of self-examination. Upon reflection, I have almost no objection to the actual content of the article. It’s what Pershey doesn’t say—stuff she is not obliged to say—that has my attention.

Amid weeks with more than their share of bad news, one story before the new year seemed like a glimmer of light in the darkness. The world grabbed onto it: Pope Francis comforting a boy as he grieved the death of his dog, telling the boy he’ll see his dog in heaven. Except the pope never said that.

Wes Craven says there are two types of horror stories: either the monster is out there, or the monster is us. Jennifer Kent's film has the moral imagination to tell both simultaneously.

(RNS) Ostensibly, the horrific attack against Charlie Hebdo in Paris was because of the publication’s satirical images of the Prophet Muhammad. But to view the assault as simply about images of Muhammad is to accept a long-standing narrative about Muslim sensitivity to portrayals of Muhammad, which plays into conceptions of Muslims as superstitious savages.

Not all of Francis's critics sound like a McCarthyite version of Foghorn Leghorn. But this refrain is common: the pope is beyond his competence in matters of science and public policy, at least where the environment is concerned.

At the end of Marilynne Robinson’s latest novel Lila, the title character envisions heaven in an intensely communal way. In light of that communal vision, Century associate editor Amy Frykholm gathered together three avid Robinson readers—Rachel Stone, Peter Boumgarden, and Amber Noel—for a conversation about the novel.

Here are the most-read Century Blog posts of the year.

Here are the Century book reviews that got read the most online this year.