Mysteries of the Bible

I write this email as I prepare to travel to AAR/SBL (the short way of saying “the annual meetings hosted by the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature”—whew). Will you, O reader, be there this year? If so, let me know... and stop by the Christian Century’s booth and say hello!

This will be my second year at the conference, and I really enjoyed it last year. It was fascinating to be in a giant room with so many other religion enthusiasts and Bible nerds. If this sounds fun to you but you can’t make it to San Antonio this weekend, perhaps you can get your fill of Bible scholarship from our new interview with Elizabeth Schrader Polczer. She chats with CC senior editor Amy Frykholm about a discovery in textual variants of John 11 that might shed light on the “apostle of the apostles,” Mary Magdalene. Polczer says that her discovery revealed a wound or vulnerability in the word of God—just one of the intriguing moments in this insightful and illuminating conversation.

We have plenty more great new content too. Below you’ll find an investigation of mushroom usage in the early church, a reflection on the ubiquity of Pentecostalism in Argentina, and a book review about the failings of the political left in the US. And even more.

Email me: What upcoming travel or learning opportunity are you excited about now?

Jon Mathieu
[email protected]

“It almost felt like the gospel was showing a wound in the text to me. Each textual variant was revealing a new aspect of the vulnerability of the word of God.”

Mushrooms at the table?

“Once you start looking for mushrooms in Christian art, you start to see them everywhere.”

My Pentecostal kin

“The Pentecostal church is present where the most marginalized people are. I know there are mainline churches in Argentina, but I’ve never seen one in the poor areas I’ve spent time in, where there is now a Pentecostal church on almost every corner.”

In the Lectionary for November 19 (Ordinary 33A)

Irena Sendler, who smuggled hundreds of children out of the Warsaw Ghetto, was a modern-day Deborah.

Why is progressive activism so ineffective?

“Fredrik deBoer’s core critiques of modern progressivism find their targets. Leftist politics in America really are hampered by dependency on the ‘nonprofit industrial complex,’ by ignoring material issues in favor of symbols, by raising the salience of identity categories in an electorate that reliably becomes less progressive in reaction, and by failure to build offline, real-world power around concrete demands.”

review by Benjamin J. Dueholm

Of Form and the Formless

“When the celebrant raises the host, 
I see the nucleus of every atom. 
I see the sun, primordial earth . . .”

poem by Chris Ellery