This weekend my mom, stepdad, and sister will be coming to Chicago to visit. I was on the phone with my mom recently to plan the trip when her voice turned somber: “Have you seen the news today?”
She said something similar when Betty White passed away, so I didn’t think the ominous question necessarily signaled a major tragedy. But she went on to describe the mass shooting in a Black community’s grocery store in Buffalo.
On the one hand, how can any of us be surprised? Another White supremacist with an assault rifle—this is, somehow, just the society we live in. And yet there is still a fresh horror each time news like this unfolds, an anger that seeks in futility for some action that could stop the cycle.
In this email we normally highlight only the most recent Christian Century articles. You can scroll down to the pictures to find those. But here I want to share some thoughtful, powerful pieces we’ve featured on the topic of gun violence:
“It would be a mistake to conclude that gaping blind spots in Niebuhr’s The Irony of American History are a reason to ignore it as dated and out of touch. Instead, they only underscore its enduring relevance.”
“Perhaps the most encouraging and elucidating element of the First Nations Version is how it uses the meaning of names for both people and places. For example, the name ‘Jesus’ is rendered ‘Creator sets Free.’”
“Our hope every week is to create a space for people whose difficult lives are made more difficult by bureaucratic violence and other kinds of harm, that they might know their own dignity and belovedness.”
“This book embraces simplicity-in-complexity, making it appropriate for both the Jhumpa Lahiri devotee and the uninitiate wondering how her name’s pronounced.”
