The Christian Century

• 1. Introduction

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  The Christian Century was not always called that. In 1884, it launched in Des Moines, Iowa, as The Christian Oracle, a denominational publication of the Disciples of Christ. By 1900, its editor was pushing for a name change. The proposed name carried a conviction: that "genuine Christian faith could live in mutual harmony with the modern developments in science, technology, immigration, communication and culture that were already under way." The offices relocated to Chicago around the same time. Eight years later, the denomination had walked away, and in 1908 the magazine went up for sale in a mortgage foreclosure. Who bought it, and what did he do with it? How did that purchase set the terms for one of American Protestantism's most influential publications? And what does it mean that the same magazine built a reputation for progressive witness while also carrying a history that has proved difficult to reconcile?

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• 2. Morrison's Magazine

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  Charles Clayton Morrison purchased the magazine and quickly labeled it nondenominational, severing its ties to any single denomination. That single decision transformed its potential audience and its editorial freedom. Morrison went on to become one of the most influential voices for liberal Christianity in America. He championed higher criticism of the Bible, a method that reads scripture in its historical and literary context rather than as literal truth. He also embraced the Social Gospel. That movement called on churches to engage with child labor, women's suffrage, racism, war and pacifism, alcoholism and prohibition, and environmentalism. This program made the Century a regular target for fundamentalists. During the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the early twentieth century, critics returned to the magazine again and again as a symbol of what they opposed. The clash reflected a genuine divide. Morrison held that modern knowledge and Christian faith were compatible, and he argued the case plainly. By 1956, the Century's influence had become visible enough to attract a deliberate institutional response. Carl F. H. Henry founded Christianity Today that year, aiming to offer a theologically conservative evangelical alternative that could restore social concerns abandoned by fundamentalists. Both magazines continue to publish today. The Century has held its position as the major independent publication within ecumenical, mainline Protestantism. That standing would be tested repeatedly in the decades that followed, not least by the moral questions that arose during the Second World War.

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• 3. Justice and Witness

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  During the Second World War, the Christian Century provided a platform for Christian activists who opposed the internment of Japanese Americans. Writers such as Galen Fisher published critiques of the internment policy regularly. The magazine helped bring awareness of the situation to a national audience. This pattern of engagement with racial justice extended into the following decades. In 1965, the Century sent editors to a march in Selma, Alabama. That decision placed the magazine inside one of the defining moments of the civil rights movement. The same conviction led the Century to become one of the first national magazines to publish Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail." The magazine also published six other essays by King. King was recognized as an editor-at-large. The relationship between King and the Century was not incidental. The magazine was treating civil rights as a moral and theological matter, not merely a story to be reported from a distance. In 2008, both Martin E. Marty and former editor James M. Wall concluded long runs as Century columnists. Each had shaped the publication in distinctive ways, and each would figure into a different kind of accounting of its record.

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• 4. The Dark Archive

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  The most troubling period in the Christian Century's history coincided with the same Morrison era that had shaped its progressive reputation. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Century published a series of articles that drew lasting accusations of antisemitism. Among them were pieces arguing against American intervention in the Second World War on behalf of Jews being persecuted under the Nazis. Others asserted a moral equivalence between an alleged Jewish-nationalist role in the crucifixion of Jesus and the Nazi persecution of Jews. The magazine also condemned American Jews for maintaining their distinct identity as a community. Rabbi Stephen Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress, had raised alarm about the fate of Jews in Europe. The Century published a rebuttal, claiming that Wise was exaggerating the Holocaust. In 1944, the magazine published an article by Fred Eastman titled "A Reply to Screamers." That piece admonished the suggestion that the United States had a moral obligation to aid the Jews being murdered in Europe. Martin E. Marty, writing about this period, later described the Christian Century of the 1940s as an "anti-Zionist" publication. The controversy did not remain confined to the Morrison era. James M. Wall, who had served as editor from 1972 to 1999, joined the editorial board of a website called VNN in 2012. The Southern Poverty Law Centre had identified VNN as a neo-Nazi hate site. Despite that association, Wall's name remained on the Century's masthead from 2012 to 2017. In 2017, it was removed. In the Century's 2021 obituary of Wall, Marty conceded that "Wall's extensive pro-Palestinian writing at times devolved into anti-Semitism." In recent years, the magazine has published both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel authors and has argued for a two-state solution to the conflict.

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• 5. A Century of Voices

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  Reinhold Niebuhr's theological ethics and Billy Graham's evangelical Christianity might seem an unlikely pairing, but both men published in the Christian Century. The magazine's contributor list across its long history draws from nearly every tradition and sphere of public life. W. E. B. DuBois and Dwight D. Eisenhower both found their way into its pages. So did T. S. Eliot, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Albert Schweitzer, and Desmond Tutu. Jane Addams, Jimmy Carter, C. S. Lewis, and Mary Daly represent the political and spiritual range that has appeared in the magazine. Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Wendell Berry, Frederick Buechner, Marilynne Robinson, and Paul Tillich gave it a literary and philosophical richness. John F. Kennedy, N. T. Wright, Richard John Neuhaus, and Sarah Coakley also published in the Century. So did James Cone, Delores S. Williams, Rowan Williams, Rosemary Rutherford, and Reuben Markham. Today, Peter W. Marty serves as editor and publisher, with Steve Thorngate as managing editor. Regular columnists in the Voices section include Debie Thomas, Sam Wells, Brian Bantum, Julian DeShazier, and Melissa Florer-Bixler. Philip Jenkins, Rachel Mann, Heidi Neumark, Alejandra Oliva, Yolanda Pierce, Jonathan Tran, and Isaac S. Villegas also contribute to the same section. Kathryn Reklis writes a film and culture column called Screen Time. The magazine's website hosts podcasts by Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Amy Frykholm, Cassidy Hall, Matt Fitzgerald, Matt Gaventa, and Adam Hearlson. The Century describes itself as "a voice of generous orthodoxy" that is "both loyal to the church and open to the world." The On Art column, a regular feature of the current magazine, extends that critical reach into visual and creative work.

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