New CC content on religious identity, church decline, spiritual practice, and more.

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** Good to be back with you
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I have just returned from a 9-day whirlwind tour of the state of Washington. My wife and I visited three national parks, two national forests, a national recreation area, and in addition to taking in all the jaw-dropping views of mountains and lakes, we saw some cool stuff in Seattle.

Many of the people we met (most of them retirees) were very friendly and chatty. Inevitably they would ask us what we do vocationally, and so I kept repeating that awkward moment that comes for all of us in ministry or politics—being forced to bring up religion or politics with a stranger. “I’m an editor at a magazine. A... progressive [wait for reaction], Christian [wait for reaction] magazine.” But these conversations weren’t so awkward after all. A lot of the people were, I think, like Alejandra Oliva’s description of herself in a recent column: perhaps not practicing Christians, but brain-soaked in this religion’s brine ([link removed]) .

There’s more great new content below too. Scroll down for Mac Loftin’s take on Michel de Certeau’s response to church decline ([link removed]) , Ryan Althaus’s reflection on how his eating disorder affected Eucharistic practice ([link removed]) , and more.

Email me: Which place has caused you to experience profound awe?

[email protected] (mailto:[email protected]?subject=Re%3A%20Editors%E2%80%99%20Picks)
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** The brine of Christianity ([link removed])
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“‘I don’t think there’s ever a time I’m not somehow thinking about religion,’ my Jewish friend said. I knew exactly what she meant.”
by Alejandra Oliva
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** A better response to the decline of the Christian West ([link removed])
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“It is because Jesus is absent that the church can arise as his body; it is because his voice has faded into silence that others can tell of what he made possible.”
by Mac Loftin
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** Anorexia in the communion line ([link removed])
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“Again I bowed my head—praying not that I would be filled with the spirit of the living Christ but that no one was watching as I stealthily slipped his bloodless body into my pocket.”

by Ryan Althaus
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** In the Lectionary for September 24 (Ordinary 25A) ([link removed])
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Jesus doesn’t seem interested in our warped ways of keeping the ledger of life.
by Ray Speller

Ordinary 25A archives ([link removed])
Get even more lectionary resources with Sunday’s Coming Premium, an email newsletter from the editors of the Christian Century. Learn more ([link removed]) .


** How secularism feels ([link removed])
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“All thinking, says Donovan Schaefer, is also feeling. Feeling thinks and thinking feels. And secularism is based every bit as much on the interplay between thinking and feeling as religion is.”

Amy Frykholm reviews Wild Experiment


** The Ballad of the Body ([link removed])
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“For 60 years I have occupied
this cage of bone and skin. . . .”

poem by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell
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