

Since 1900, the Christian Century has published reporting, commentary, poetry, and essays on the role of faith in a pluralistic society.
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The religious practice of community organizing
Aaron Stauffer offers a nuanced study of the radical social gospel and broad-based organizing.
Walter Earl Fluker’s call to the Black church
In King’s time, the goal was to stir the churches to struggle. Now it’s to wake the dead.
Walter Rauschenbusch then and now
William Pitts examines the era when the Social Gospel was new—and controversial.
How American Protestant missionaries helped usher in post-Protestant America
David Hollinger shows how the social gospel principles that drove mission abroad boomeranged back home.
The black social gospel and the civil rights movement
Gary Dorrien chronicles the influential—but often forgotten—work of Mordecai Johnson, Benjamin Mays, and Howard Thurman.
by John Fea
Take & Read: American religious history
Grant Wacker recommends the best recently published books in his field.
selected by Grant Wacker
Woodrow Wilson’s troubling faith
Wilson adopted a brand of social Christianity that justified white supremacy and more.
#Blessed
Will young men and women from middle and lower class backgrounds be pushed down with medical and educational debt? Will they see the military as the only option for education, health, and opportunity?
National Public Radio just ran a pair of features on the flavors of Christianity represented by the presidential and vice presidential nominees. An editor’s note affixed to both stories summarizes the theme: “Both major presidential candidates this year are Protestants… Beyond that, their faith profiles are very different.”
The young people leading this movement have heard enough about Martin Luther King's dream. It is not enough for church leaders to reply that they don't know much history.
by Gary Dorrien
In American history, some lives have mattered; others have not. That difference fundamentally has been a racial one.
by Paul Harvey
Why have American Christians so readily baptized the idea of free-market capitalism? Kevin Kruse illuminates the long, tangled history.
According to Heath Carter, working people have been some of Christianity's most important theological innovators.
Denigrating "social activist churches" was central to Hauerwas and Willimon's agenda. Yet Resident Aliens revived social gospel arguments.
by Gary Dorrien
Like it or not, Wikipedia is here and it will probably stay. Everybody from third grade history students to graduate level scholars use them. Even when Wiki pages cannot be cited, we still use them. We are forming history on that site.
One hundred years ago this summer, a fundamentalist Christian stood before the convention of a major political party and offered an impromptu resolution. He ended his impassioned speech by quoting words of Jesus. The speech was not what you might expect.