Guest Post

New today from the Century: Just war and counterinsurgency, racial violence and presidential rhetoric, more.

If Americans of a certain age know anything about Puritanism, it is probably because they read something by the (atheist) historian Edmund S. Morgan, the great Yale scholar who died July 8. His book The Puritan Dilemma—which used the life of John Winthrop to describe the Puritans’ religious and political project in America—was widely assigned in high schools and colleges.  I had the good fortune decades ago to take a graduate class from Morgan on American colonial history.

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New today from the Century: Bashing the mainline, preaching the Lord's Prayer, more.

New today from the Century: John Buchanan on grief, Carol Howard Merritt on bad biblical metaphors, more.

New today from the Century: The editors on the Trayvon Martin case, Julie Ruth Harley on living with ALS, more.

On Tuesday, the general assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) approved a resolution calling on the church in all its expressions to affirm the faith, baptism, and spiritual gifts of everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. This was timely, given the Defense of Marriage Act decision, though the resolution doesn’t specifically mention same-sex marriage. Nor does it mention ordination—the other hot-button issue around sexuality in the church—though it does affirm that neither sexual orientation nor gender identity is “grounds for exclusion from fellowship or service within the church.” 

Barton Swaim, reviewing Elesha J. Coffman’s The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline for the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), wrote this: Nor were the editors [of the Christian Century] above dirty tricks, at one point even hiring an investigative reporter to find some impropriety in [the Billy Graham] organization’s finances. None came to light, but in something of a scoop, Ms. Coffman has discovered documents linking the revered historian Martin Marty to the rough anti-Graham campaign. As far as Coffman’s book goes, I have only the usual quibbles that a historian voices when reviewing the work of another historian. It is Swaim who is unfair to the magazine.

New today from the Century: Richard Lischer reviews John Sexton, Kelly Baker on the secular apocalypse, more.

The median church size in the U.S. is 75 members: there are lots of little congregations, and a few very large ones. That in turn leads to this fun figure: asking a 75-member church to absorb $50,000 in increased ministry costs works out to about $666 per person each year, a 44 percent surcharge on the average worshiper's contribution.

New today from the Century: Tammerie Day on George Zimmerman and the history of colonial Florida, Kathryn Reklis on Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing, more.

New today from the Century: Crystal St. Marie Lewis on the Zimmerman verdict and the desire to escape, Rodney Clapp on prayer amid a whirlwind, more.

New today from the Century: Kat Banakis on being alone among friends, Tyler Day on Andy Murray and what's changed, more.

New today from the Century: Sam Wells on what's really killing the church, Martha-Lynn Corner on what's seen and what's unseen, more.

New today from the Century: Carolyne Call on how the church fails the divorced, Sarah Barringer Gordon on the other side of religious liberty and same-sex marriage, more.

Many Egyptian Christians see the military's intervention as salvation. Is this wise? Do they have a choice?

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New today from the Century: The Supreme Court and equality, Methodists who might go to heaven, more.

New today from the Century: Philip Jenkins on the Irish nones, Carol Zaleski on C. S. Lewis, more.

New today from the Century: July 4 and war sermons, bearing ironic witness, the Bible in English lit, more.