Other denominations (and religions)

After spending decades in a faith tradition that thought it was correct on all matters, over and above the world’s other religions—and different Christian denominations mostly counted as other religions—I am now so grateful for the riches of learning across dividing lines. Other ways of being, believing, and loving aren’t calls for help, nor are they threats to my faith; they are, among other things, opportunities for me to perceive the Divine in new ways.

And so I love when the articles in the Century draw from many wells of wisdom. Sometimes those wells are quite familiar to me, like in Debie Thomas’s new column (one of my favorites of all time) about how she uses images and metaphors to interpret the deconstruction and reimagining of her own faith. Other times they bring me new paradigms and vantage points, like Don Abrams’s struggle for better health outcomes for LGBTQ folks in the Black church, or Celene Ibrahim’s navigation of religious identities as a Muslim scholar teaching Indigenous history at an Episcopal school.

Plus more great new content below, including a tribute to lost denominations, a book review about what refugees bring with them, and more.

Email me: What have you learned from other faith traditions?

Jon Mathieu
[email protected]

Metaphors for the spiritual life

“The image that emerged on the page was a landscape in the aftermath of an earthquake. Toppled buildings, mangled cars, vast tangles of leafy branches strewn across cracked pavement. Rubble as far as the eye could see. But also, as I looked more closely, some unlikely treasures.”

Black, queer, and Christian

“We partner with faith-based institutions and health-care practitioners to help them recognize that the way Black queer, trans, and nonconforming folk orient around religion impacts their ultimate health-care outcomes.”

Crossing religious boundaries at Groton

“My students and I have much more to learn—and likely also to unlearn—than is possible in our relatively brief time together. Yet I hope that they leave my classroom with provisions to undertake their own journeys of self-discovery through the ethical terrains of life.”

In the Lectionary for February 11 (Transfiguration B)

What Peter, James, and John see on the mountain cannot be neatly packaged for resale.

A landscape of lost denominations

“Not only are the names of these denominations lost, but much of the cultural inheritance has also faded with the ethnic identity and the language.”

by Philip Jenkins

What do people who’ve lost everything bring with them?

“This book is an act of love and an act of translation. A story of the savers and the saved, it’s a vivid reminder that every refugee carries a whole world inside them.”

Amy Frykholm reviews Stephanie Saldaña