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A complicated holiday


July 4 has always been a bit strange for me. I don’t love cookouts or fireworks, and I’m not one for patriotism. I’m finding that as this year’s holiday approaches, the strangeness has taken on new layers. To reflect on the USA is to reflect on its role in the world. Its action or inaction, its words or silence, in Gaza and Ukraine (and Sudan and Myanmar and many more). Its bombs in Iran.

I am grateful for a brand new piece from Stanley Haurwas and Andy Doyle. They reflect on the church’s identity and responsibilities in a time of war. Their essay is largely a response to the conflict with Iran, while Mordechai Beck offers a reflection on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Ahab-and-Jezebel scheme to conquer his enemies. These two pieces feel like they are just in time this week to help me process my nation’s relationship to peace and justice abroad.

Our video of the week is also a balm for me. I talked to Lauren Cibene about how she is deconstructing her politics much like she did her former evangelical faith. Plus more great content below, like Melissa Florer-Bixler’s embarrassing lessons as a student pastor and Sam Wells’s appearance in a man’s near-death experience.

Jon Mathieu
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The church cannot bless war

“Christianity demands more than private values or partisan identity. It requires a public witness. And in a time of war, that witness includes a refusal to allow the state to define righteousness on its terms.”

by C. Andrew Doyle and Stanley Hauerwas

Bibi’s endless war

“In Netanyahu’s rhetoric, Bibi is the savior, the one who fulfills the messianic strain of complete victory over the dark forces of evil. In this view, the enemy is not Hamas but rather the Palestinians themselves, from whose guts Hamas is spawned.”

by Mordechai Beck

VIDEO: Deconstructing both faith and politics

Lauren Cibene chats with Jon about her experience as an ex-vangelical and a deconstructing American.

In the Lectionary for July 6 (Ordinary 14C)

God’s saving work is never too big for ordinary moments or casual conversations.

by Gina Burkhart

Ordinary 14C archives
Get even more lectionary resources with Sunday’s Coming Premium, an email newsletter from the editors of the Christian Century. Learn more.

Learning humility as a student pastor

“My image of the pastor—comforting a distraught mother, stepping outside herself as a pillar of strength—disappeared.”

by Melissa Florer-Bixler

A man I know had a near-death experience

“He said that he’d been dead, that wherever he’d gone to wasn’t a reconstruction of unresolved memories and unfulfilled desires. It was whatever lies beyond us, or at least beyond him. … But what was I doing there?”

by Samuel Wells

The kingdom of God is like this

“Thomas Long has written a voluminous, sweeping, occasionally even thrilling book that will empower preachers to preach on and with the parables of Jesus.”

review by Will Willimon

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