I was very much swept up in the podcast craze in 2014-2015 when season 1 of Serial took the world by storm. I listened to podcasts about murder mysteries, US politics, tech innovations, con artists, and more. But I listened to these only on my driving commute to work; when that commute went away (read: when I was fired from the megachurch), I fell out of my podcast habit.
Working at the Century has brought my podcast love back to life. My colleague Amy Frykholm’s third season of In Search Of is here, and it is off to an amazing start. This season focuses on the search for lost histories of women in the church, and it kicks off with a follow-up interview of Elizabeth Schrader Polczer, a Bible scholar doing provocative work on Mary Magdalene’s treatment in John’s Gospel. Amy also interviewed Polczer last season, and a shorter version of that interview was one of the most-read articles on our website in 2023. In this season 3 chat, the two are joined by Diana Butler Bass, a writer whose sermon on Polczer’s work brought it into the spotlight two years ago.
If you’d rather stick to the written word, good news: we have some excellent new articles this week. Check out Michael Woolf’s practical and challenging description of reparations in a church context, or Peter Marty’s reflection on the sin of sloth (in a bathrobe). Plus more great content below.
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“If Mary Magdalene gets the Christological confession, that changes everything. It changes everything about the Gospel of John. It changes everything for women in leadership. It changes everything.”
“Redlining maps are not only views into the past; they can also become the building blocks for constructing a theology that wrestles profoundly with the present, even if that wrestling means that White churches will have to do some serious soul-searching.”
“Christians who observe Lent consider it a penitential season, which usually connotes calm and deliberate reflectiveness. But what if Lent challenges us to get moving, not to slow or quiet down?”
“Sinners are people who know the truth that something is wrong and that they’re caught up in it. People in recovery have lived close to this reality for a long time, and they aren’t afraid to say that truth aloud.”
“Miguel Díaz’s practice of translation goes beyond the linguistic. His book speaks from within Christian traditions not readily associated with queer theology.”
Adrián Emmanuel Hernández-Acosta reviews Queer God de Amor
