The Christian Century

My daughter and I were listening to the radio, when the prerecorded radio show commercial butted in to say, “We only play NEW music.”  

I hear a fearful refrain coming from church leaders, from every denominational level. They twist their fingers into knots as they say: If we don’t have our endowment, we will die. It’s our job to protect the endowment for future generations. Our future depends on a healthy endowment.

To keep the evangelical belief system intact, a person needs to be a part of the subculture. You need to be surrounded by like-minded people who can look past scientific realities, uphold a separate role for women, and give unquestioned support to the GOP.

Ruth Everhart's book, Ruined: A Memoir, comes out today. It's a gripping story about sexual violence and looking at our theology in the midst of difficult realities.I had a chance to talk with Ruth about the value of women, what it was like to write the memoir, and how we understand God's sovereignty and power in the midst of violence. 

This summer, I worked with the good people of UNCO to start a publishing company. We published our first book, Faithful Resistance, by Rick Ufford-Chase. In it, Rick brings together a chorus of voices. In this midst of the shattering violence of this week, I want to introduce you to one of those voices, in particular. Annanda Barclay writes about why Black Lives Matter.

In Ohio, an angry Donald Trump responds after he tweeted an anti-Semitic image of Hillary Clinton from a white supremacist group. He blasts the media for their criticism of the image: “They’re racial profiling, they’re profiling. Not us.” How is this even possible? Two black men are killed by police. Brutally and violently. And a billionaire white man, with every privilege in the world, says he’s the victim.