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January 18, 2017

Volume 134, Issue #2
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Features

Photo of Jose Oliva
Interviews

Food justice is about workers

"I paid for college by working at restaurants. That gave me a worm's eye view."

Amy Frykholm interviews Jose Oliva

Healing bleeding woman
First Person

A story of two leaky bodies

In Mark 5, a hemorrhaging woman meets a permeable savior.

by Julie Morris

Afghan refugee children
First Person

My time at a refugee camp in Malakasa

It was easy for me to get to Greece. But Europe's system of borderless travel only applies to some.

by Arianne Zwartjes

Tracy Nolan
Interviews

Being a pastor for trans people

"A trans person's story has some unique elements, but the work of pastoral care remains essentially the same."

Elizabeth Palmer interviews Tracy Nolan

gender crossing
First Person

How do you hold together your trans identity and your life of faith?

Nine trans Christians tell their stories.

Books

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Thinking with trans

Rogers Brubaker considers transracial and transgender identities together.

by Leonard Curry
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Our voices, ourselves

The voice contains the power of breath, part divine and part human.

by Peder Jothen
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A do-gooder’s tale

D. L. Mayfield wanted to help Somali refugees. She ended up mostly baking them cupcakes.

by Katherine Willis Pershey
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A didactic, irresistible novel

Leonard Pitts's story is so compelling that you barely notice how much you're learning.

by LaVonne Neff

Departments

Art image
On Art

Gospel Feelings

Since its inception in 2014, gospelfeelings.com has offered weekly multimedia engagements with Gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary....

 Art selection and comment by Lil Copan

Debre Libanos Monastery

The martyrs of Debre Libanos

Under Mussolini, Christian soldiers obeyed orders to target the Ethiopian church.

by Philip Jenkins

First Words

All of us are beautiful

Our identities—gender and otherwise—are shaped by community and God.

by Peter W. Marty

Buddha and Pantocrator
Faith Matters

The Buddha and the Pantocrator

Buddhist statues and Orthodox icons aren't always symmetrical. Neither are we.

by Carol Zaleski

Black Panther Coates
On Media

Ta-Nehisi Coates stewards a story

The new Black Panther series uses genre conventions to say something true.

by Adam Hearlson

Wounded in Aleppo
From the Editors

A lament for Aleppo

Doing something is not always better than doing nothing.

News

Sacred and secular unite on Basque church’s walls

The Iglesia de San Miguel is the pride of Antezana de Foronda, a tiny town in Spain’s Basque Country. Yet the 16th-century church, with its spectacular wooden carvings and baroque altarpiece, had fallen on hard times....

by Rosanne Skirble

Jews and Muslims join together to defend religious minorities

(The Christian Science Monitor) When Sheryl Olitzky first broached the subject of a Jewish-Muslim women’s group, Atiya Aftab didn’t buy it....

by Jessica Mendoza

People

Surgeon in Burundi wins $500,000 medical missionary prize

Jason Fader, one of a dozen surgeons serving the nation of Burundi, won the first-ever Gerson L’Chaim Prize for Outstanding Christian Medical Missionary Service....
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Egyptian theologians look to early church after recent attacks

Only a few days after the December 12 attack against the city’s Coptic Christians as they worshiped, theologians met near Cairo to seek unity in an early church father....

by Albin Hillert

People

Pastor and business executive start company to help churches bridge digital divide

Boise Kimber, pastor of First Calvary Baptist Church in New Haven, Con­necticut, saw his congregation pay more than $1,000 for a web­site, only to have the people they purchased it from disappear....

by Adelle M. Banks

People

Gertrude “Trudy” Bush, CC contributing editor, dies at age 77

Gertrude “Trudy” Bush, a contributing editor of the Christian Century, died December 13 at age 77 in Upper Arlington, Ohio....
by Christian Century staff

Religious Freedom Act also protects atheists

When President Obama signed a newly strengthened international religious freedom act, the intention was to protect religious believers around the world....

by Kimberly Winston

First global study of religion and education shows progress, gaps

The first-ever global study of religion and education shows that Jews are more highly educated than any other religious group, while Hindus and Muslims are the least educated....

by Lauren Markoe

Lectionary

February 12, Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

Deuteronomy 30:15–20; 1 Corinthians 3:1–9; Matthew 5:21–37

by Brian Maas

February 5, Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

Isaiah 58:1–12; 1 Corinthians 2:1–12; Matthew 5:13–20

by Brian Maas

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