Eventually I’ll run out of Hamilton lyrics for these email headings. Anyway, it’s good to be back, though my time away in Denver and Silverthorne, CO, was wonderful. We saw the Avett Brothers play at Red Rocks, rafted on the Colorado River, and ate a lot of green chili.
While I was gone, the Century published one of the most (in my opinion) fascinating issues since I’ve been working here. In many of our issues each article is independent and covers its own topic, but in the July 27 edition we featured five pieces on the overturning of Roe v. Wade, two essays on the 1960s Death of God movement, and two articles on paid family and medical leave.
I’m excited to share some of those pieces with you today. Two of my favorite articles about the post-Roe era were Amy Frykholm’s personal reflection on the embodiment and discernment of reproductive decisions and Reggie Williams’s powerful letter to his daughter. As for the radical theology that has posited God’s death, we have a piece from Don Hamilton (son of noted theologian Bill Hamilton) about his family’s journey and a helpful overview of the movement from Lloyd Steffen. Plus more thoughtful content below.
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“The US Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision is intended to work against this kind of discernment. It does not trust women as moral agents. There are millions of people who think they know better what we should have done or not done in that circumstance.”
“My dear, sweet daughter, this is why we both found ourselves struggling with the voices that claimed the end of Roe as a Christian victory. When we are dealing with people’s lives, we must make actual, embodied life encounters the departure point for discerning what is good and just.”
“Amid the death threats, hate mail, and newspaper editorials calling for Dad’s dismissal, our family stopped going to church. The faculty at the divinity school, some of them our neighbors, turned against him.”
“Today, students who ask whether or not God is dead do not associate the death of God with anything diabolical, but they may be expressing a sense of alienation in a desacralized world.”
“Among painter Eleanor Ray’s influences is philosopher Simone Weil, who understood attention as prayer. Ray’s work is marked by spareness, depth, clean lines, and a singular view, with all else stripped away.”
