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Articles by T. Denise Anderson
Audacious visions (Revelation 1:4b-8)
To receive these posts by email each Monday, sign up. For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century. As a child, Harriet Tubman was regularly beaten by the people to whom she was hired. One time, she was struck in the head with a heavy metal weight, which led to a lifetime of debilitating headaches and seizures.
Lectionary essay for November 24 Reign of Christ B John 18 33 37
In 1925, Pope Pius XI instituted the feast day of the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. To understand why he did this, we should consider what was happening in the world at the time. That year, Adolf Hitler had just published the first volume of Mein Kampf, which detailed his descent into antisemitism and his sinister designs for world domination.
Vietnamese followers of 'barefoot monk' question call for social media silence
A Vietnamese man who became a social media sensation as he walked around the country promoting the virtues of an ascetic way of life, and earning the nickname the “barefoot monk,” has reappeared in public after disappearing four months ago.
Can scientists make a universe from nothing?
Zeeya Merali is a science writer and author of A Big Bang in a Little Room. She also edits the Foundational Questions Institute website, where she blogs and cohosts a physics podcast. A version of this interview originally appeared in season two of the Century podcast In Search Of. Let’s start with this mind-blowing idea that scientists are trying to create a universe in a lab. What did you learn about it? They sound like supervillains, don’t they?
Finding rest (Hebrews 10:11-25)
To receive these posts by email each Monday, sign up. For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century. Poet Nayyirah Waheed writes these words: “all the women. / in me. / are tired.” This is one of those quotes that lives rent-free in my head.
Stretched between life’s verses
Augustine once described the difference between our experience of time and God’s experience as the feeling of being stretched between past, present, and future. He said time, for us, is like singing a song and being caught between recalling what we had sung, singing the words in the moment, and anticipating the words that will come. As I sit and write this I am anticipating a new season of life, changes that were always coming but were never quite present.
Why is the widow poor? (Mark 12:38-44)
To receive these posts by email each Monday, sign up. For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century. Consider how often the Bible talks about widows, who were among the most vulnerable members of society. Theirs were the days before State Farm or Mutual of Omaha, before there would be insurance payouts to cover the bills in the event of your spouse’s death.
Lessons from the land of lake effect snow
Three little words, “lake effect snow,” still evoke fear and trembling in me. Until I moved to Ithaca, New York, for graduate school, I had never heard the phrase. The individual words sound relatively benign. A lake is a beautiful body of water, certainly in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. And snow is perfect weather in the winter, conjuring up images of fireplaces and cozy nights at home. But lake effect snow means cooler atmospheric conditions and cold air masses.
The Joyful Risk of Christmas
A FEW YEARS ago, I set out to knit a baby blanket as an Advent prayer practice. Knitting is incredibly meditative and allows me to pray with focus and clarity. Knitting a baby blanket seems appropriate as the church awaits the arrival of the “newborn king.” I wish I could say I finished the blanket in time for Christmas. I did not. However, even that seems appropriate, as so much remains unresolved for Jesus’ community at his birth.
When Institutions Turn to Dust
WE ARE APPROACHING the end of the liturgical year, and the texts have a thread of anticipation running through them. We are deep into the promises conveyed by the prophets and the eschatological vision cast by Jesus. The texts are inviting us to prepare ourselves for something — but what, exactly? The last Sunday in November, in many traditions, is the Advent Sunday of hope. In biblical Greek, the verb is elpizō (“hope”), which means to wait for salvation with both joy and full confidence.
Creating Tomorrow out of the Wholeness of Today
PUBLIC EDUCATOR AND philosopher Cornel West has spoken about the difference between optimism and hope. Optimism, as he understands it, can point to empirical evidence that suggests things will get better, while hope can exist without any of that. Even when nothing around us points to a bright future, hope defiantly holds on for a better day. Baptist minister and social ethicist Miguel A.
Like a Potter, God Can Reshape Us
IN HER BOOK The Great Emergence, the late Phyllis Tickle pointed out that the church undergoes a “rummage sale” about every 500 years in which dominant forms of its spirituality are displaced from prominence by newer forms of spirituality. It’s much like a purge one would have when decluttering a home or preparing for a move. Older forms of spirituality aren’t done away with; they simply are no longer dominant. New things come to the forefront.
Who Sits At Your Table?
YOU, FAITHFUL CHURCH workers, have survived the demands of Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost, and I’m willing to wager you are tired. By this time in the liturgical cycle, I’m usually exhausted and my spiritual (and sometimes physical) walk includes a pronounced limp. Vocational and social demands have taken their toll, not to mention the profound collective trauma we have all been through.
Prophets, Losses, and Complex Truths
MY PARENTS WERE raised watching Westerns in which the tropes were all the same: There were “good guys” and “bad guys.” I was raised on Disney movies with similar tropes. There was little moral complexity in these stories, which I suspect reflects our tendency to look at the world in terms of a good/bad dichotomy. Reality is much more nuanced. I appreciate the way that popular 21st-century movies have embraced some of that nuance.
Carrying the Good News
THE MONTH OF June will require spiritual caregivers to take note of tensions. We begin with the celebration of Pentecost, known as the “birthday of the church,” which will undoubtedly be a day of great joy for the faithful. But later in the month, we mark the grim anniversaries of shootings at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., and Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla.
God Calls Us to Be Partners, Not Marionettes
TO WHOM DO our lives belong? The Barmen Declaration, written in 1934, was a theological statement by a small group of German Protestants in response to the growing pro-Nazi movement within German Christianity.
Our God Will Not Be Bribed
WE TEND TO approach Lent passively. Some of that is appropriate. After all, we start Lent by putting ashes on our heads to symbolize our grief, and grief often makes us more still. But Lent is a season of intentional activity. To repent is to shift course. We continue to move, but in a different direction. We walk with God, following where God leads, no matter what we must leave behind. This journey eventually leads to the cross, and later to resurrection. That’s when we find the journey has just begun.
Will Lent Reveal Our Authentic Self?
A CURIOUS THING happened among many congregations in my very white denomination after George Floyd was killed: Churches that had been at best timid to enter the work of racial justice dove into it headfirst. Colleagues dusted off their blogs to share their thoughts. Church leaders laced up their sneakers to participate in marches. It appeared that a reckoning had occurred for countless people in the faith.
Awe at God's Big Reveal
EPIPHANY IS NOT an all-at-once revelation of God’s presence with us in the person of Jesus Christ. The entire world was not made aware of Jesus’ arrival at the precise moment it happened. The Magi didn’t make their trek to see the Christ child until he was a toddler. Often Jesus’ own disciples didn’t know who he was when they first encountered him. And little if any positive change occurred in the sociopolitical climate for Israel.
What God Is Doing in the Shadows
I’M NOT SURE where I thought we would be by now, but I didn’t think we’d be here. A global pandemic has ravaged and killed too many of our loved ones to name, though we could have contained it through collective measures. Climate change continues unabated despite decades of warning and appeal, and we may have missed our window to prevent its worst impacts. We’re experiencing perils that are unnecessary and completely caused by our selective will.
On Not Being the “Safe” One
While at the NEXT Church National Gathering last week, I engaged in a number of conversations about race. Some were about encounters with race and racism. Others were about racial justice. But the one that was most resonant for me was a conversation I had with a few other people of color about representation.
“Allies,” the Time For Your Silence Has Expired
As we reel from the horrific news out of Charleston, SC, in which nine people were killed and others wounded after a gunman opened fire during Bible study at Emanuel AME Church, the details we’re gathering in the aftermath all suggest that this was a hate crime. According to eye-witnesses, the shooter was lobbing accusations and generalizations about Black people and declared that what he was about to do (i.e. kill innocent worshipers) was necessary. And Black people remain numb.
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