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December 30, 2020

Volume 137, Issue #27
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Features

Readers Write

Scar: Essays by readers

We gave our readers a one-word writing prompt: “scar.”
How My Mind Has Changed

There’s no theological education pipeline anymore

It’s been replaced by a thriving irrigation hose.

by Justo L. González

First Person

God became flesh, but he never had breast cancer

I was diagnosed just after Christmas. It changed my perspective on the incarnation.

by Elizabeth Felicetti

Boys State makes government entertaining

In reality it’s pretty boring—and very important.

by Jason Byassee

First Person

Living with chronic pain without asking why

When I’m simply present to my own pain, I learn to be present to others’ pain, too.

by Liuan Huska

Critical Essay

What Native American political systems can teach us about power and truth telling

My Choctaw ancestors understood the cost of lies.

by Steven Charleston

Books

The audacity to preach the gospel

Will Willimon tells preachers to put aside sentimentality.

by E. Johanna Hartelius

Who is solitude for?

David Vincent’s exhaustive tome suggests that fruitful solitude has often been linked to privilege.

by Jon Sweeney

Piranesi is the best kind of fantasy novel

Susanna Clarke weaves magic into her readers’ lives.

by Joshua B. Grace

Robert P. Jones says it’s past time to reckon with Christianity’s role in White supremacy

White Too Long envisions the hope that could follow recognition and repentance.

by Aaron Klink

Departments

Faith Matters

Epiphany after a hard year

Lately I find myself returning to the writing of Brian Doyle.

by Debra Dean Murphy

First Words

2020 has me thinking about how we experience time

Time ignores our every attempt to harness it.

by Peter W. Marty

On Art

Sentinel VIII | Sentinel IX | Sentinel XII, by Aude Hérail Jäger

"More great than human, now, and more August, / New deified she from her fires does rise.” John Dryden wrote these optimistic words in 1666, in his poem Annus Mirabilis (The year of wonders)....

art selection and comment by Aaron Rosen

Screen Time

The Good Lord Bird portrays abolitionist John Brown as a wild prophet

The miniseries is full of big ideas about freedom and self-determination.

by Kathryn Reklis

From the Editors

It’s time to end the cash bail system

You don’t get people to show up in court by threatening to take away money they never had.

News

Supreme Court rejects attendance caps for houses of worship

On November 26, as coronavirus cases surged again nationwide, the Supreme Court barred New York from enforcing certain limits on attendance at churches and synagogues in areas designated as hard hit by the virus....

by Jessica Gresko

Progressive group launches new Methodist denomination

A group of progressive United Methodists and other Christians have launched a new denomination named the Liberation Methodist Connexion, or LMX....

by Heather Hahn

Historic Middle Collegiate Church destroyed in fire

An early morning fire in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood has de­stroyed the 128-year-old building of Middle Col­legiate Church, one of the oldest congregations in the city....

by Roxanne Stone

After getting out the vote, Black church leaders look ahead

On the last Sunday of October, Karl Anderson helped arrange a Souls to the Polls event on a blocked-off street in downtown Gainesville, Florida, to encourage people to vote early....

by Adelle M. Banks

National Guard chaplains reflect on George Floyd protests, lessons learned

  Stephanie Christoffels started the communal prayer at the fall training of her fellow Minnesota National Guard chaplains by reminding them of Christianity’s two greatest commandments: to love God and neighbor....

by Giovanna Dell’Orto

People

Head of Serbian Orthodox Church dies of COVID-19

Patriarch Irinej, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, died of COVID-19 on November 20 at the age of 90. He contracted the virus three weeks earlier while officiating the large, public funeral of a senior bishop who had died of COVID-19....

by Dawn Araujo-Hawkins

People

Groundbreaking Lutheran educator Cheryl Stewart Pero dies at 69

Cheryl Stewart Pero, one of the first Black Luth­eran women to be ordained in the United States, died on October 28 after a short illness and hospitalization. She was 69....
People

Indigenous spiritual leader Eddie Benton-Banai dies at 89

Eddie Benton-Banai, who helped found the American Indian Movement, partly in response to alleged police brutality against Indigenous people, died on November 30. He was 89....

by Amy Forliti and Felicia Fonseca

Lectionary

January 17, Epiphany 2B (John 1:43–51)

The “Son of Humanity,” the “true Israelite,” and the broken places in our communities

by Angela N. Parker

January 10, Baptism B (Mark 1:4–11)

Readers of Mark’s Gospel know that a divine fragmentation could happen at any time.

by Angela N. Parker

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