The Christian century: past, present, and future.

Buchanan, John M.

It must have been an extraordinary time to be alive in the 1890's, as the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth. Karen Armstrong nicely characterized the beginning of the twentieth century in her book, The Case for God, (1) by telling about the confident optimism and the cheerful buoyancy of the Second International Congress of Mathematicians, which convened in Paris in 1900. German mathematician David Hilbert announced that there were just twenty-three outstanding problems in the Newtonian system, and, once these twenty-three remaining puzzles were solved, we would pretty much know everything there is to know about the universe. Hilbert went on to predict a century of unparalleled scientific progress. Permanent peace and prosperity seemed to be within reach. There appeared to be no limit to what human beings could and would accomplish. Virginia Woolf visited an exhibit of post-impressionist paintings and wrote, "In or about December, 1910, human nature changed." (2)

That same year, 1910, a World Missionary Conference was convened in Edinburgh, with 1,200 delegates from around the world gathering to talk about interchurch collaboration in the global missionary enterprise. The chairperson was American Methodist and lay ecumenist John R. Mott. Among the distinguished delegates were Lord Balfour, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and William Jennings Bryan, who spoke eloquently about global education as part of the mission project. Bryan, years before his humiliation and tragic demise in a small Tennessee courtroom, combined a speaking tour of Scotland with his service at the conference. Also present was Robert E. Speer, one of the saints of Presbyterianism; the President of Doshisha University in Japan, Tasuku Harada; G. Sherwood Eddy, evangelist and YMCA worker around the world; and the Bishop of the Church of Sweden. Taking it all in, as well, was a thirty-six-year-old American delegate, a minister in the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, Charles Clayton Morrison. Two years earlier he had purchased a floundering journal, The Christian Century, and "re-founded it." He wired back to Chicago an editorial, published on July 7, 1910, in which he described sitting in the drawing room of his host--the delegates were housed in Edinburgh homes--taking tea, his host saying that the conference was "about the biggest thing that ever struck Scotland." In fact, Morrison reported that the Archbishop of Canterbury looked around at the assembly and observed, "If men be weighted rather than counted, this assemblage has, I suppose, no parallel in the history of this or other lands."

The conference identified sectarian division among Christians as the most formidable obstacle to the global advancement of the Christian. Hope and optimism ran high. Morrison wrote: "Everyone feels the presence ... of a power, optimism ran high. Morrison wrote: "Everyone feels the presence ... of a power, not ourselves, deeper than our own devices, which is making for a triumphant advance of Christianity abroad ... the delegates [are] thrilled by the sense that the conference foreshadows a new era for the church at home." (3) He concluded:

   The theme of Christian unity is running through the whole
   conference like a subterranean stream. It breaks through the ground
   of any subject the conference may be considering, and bubbles on
   the surface for a time. It is almost the exception for a speaker to
   sit down without deploring our divisions. The missionaries are
   literally plaintive in their appeal that the church of Christ
   re-establish her long lost unity. (4)

It is perhaps not possible for us to recapture the optimism and hope of the first decade of the twentieth century. Developments in physics, biology, and mathematics would make human life better, healthier, and more free than it had ever been. Modern transport would bring the nations of the world closer to one another and, therefore, more inclined to be peaceful. Christianity, with a new vision of its power represented by ecumenism, reflected the general confidence by setting itself to the goal of actualizing the Reign of God on earth--and the world for Christ in our time.

One of the later editors of Morrison's magazine wrote about that era:

   Many Protestants were tiring of provincialism; their churches were
   breaking out of sectarian isolation. Some scholars were daring to
   speak the truth concerning the history and composition of the
   Bible, thus liberating some churches from literalism. Runaway
   industrialism had become so oppressive that the nation's conscience
   was hurting. Exploited labor was stirring, hoping to find in
   organization a way to shorter hours, decent wages and improved
   conditions. Suffragists were marching to gain voting rights for
   women. Pioneer sociologists were uncovering the shame of city slum
   and the disgrace of child labor in field and factory. Proposals to
   prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicants were widely
   supported. The political arena was alive with humanitarian issues.
   (5)

The Christian Century was born at a time when thoughtful people believed that they were living at the beginning of it: the Christian century. The magazine was actually founded in 1884 as The Christian Oracle--a name that someone quipped recently is actually worse than Christian Century. It was a Disciples of Christ journal, which renamed itself The Christian Century in 1900, floundered, and was in mortgage foreclosure when Morrison bought it for $1,500 from a publishing broker in Chicago. He ran it as a for-profit corporation until his retirement in 1947. His magazine became an eloquent voice for the social gospel movement. Wikipedia says we are "[c]onsidered the flagship magazine of U.S.

   For decades The Christian Century has informed and shaped mainline
   Christianity. Committed to "thinking critically and living
   faithfully," the magazine explores through argument and reflection
   what it means to believe and live out the Christian Faith in our
   time. As a voice of "generous orthodoxy" the Century is both loyal
   to the church and open to the world.

Our voice has been important enough in the culture of American religion that two other journals were founded in disagreement with us: Christianity and Crisis, and Christianity Today. We have never been large; the highest circulation was 45,000. Mostly, it has been in the mid-30,000's, but we have been read by academics and pastors, evangelicals who have been infuriated with our liberal positions, and liberals who have been enraged by our not being liberal enough. President Jimmy Carter read us and reads us still, I believe, as does legendary North Carolina Tar Heels basketball coach, Dean Smith. Contributors over the years have included Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, Gerald Ford, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Rockefeller, Walter Reuther, Karl Menninger, Robert Kennedy--and Spiro Agnew (but not on my watch).

The Christian Century reported on, analyzed, and advocated for the issues that have characterized the age and compelled the conscience of the churches. On the topic of war, The Christian Century in its early years advocated political action to outlaw war, and Morrison, so prominent in the peace movement, was invited to Paris during the 1920's to witness the signing of an international treaty to abolish war. Unfortunately, it had no provision for enforcement. As war threatened again in the 1930's, Morrison, who was not quite a pacifist (he called himself a "pragmatic non-interventionist"), wrote consistently and powerfully against war and preparation for war. Only after Pearl Harbor did he reluctantly change his mind. He called the Second World War an "Unnecessary Necessity."

It was also the subject of increasing tension with Reinhold Niebuhr, a contributing editor and one of the magazine's most important and popular writers. Niebuhr's Christian Realism required resisting evil, by force, if necessary. He became so irritated with Morrison's "pragmatic non-interventionism" that he broke with the magazine in February, 1941, removed his name from the masthead, and launched his own magazine, Christianity and Crisis. It took years for the breach to heal, but eventually it did, and Niebuhr resumed writing for The Century. Niebuhr also disagreed with Morrison over Prohibition. Morrison was a teetotaler and an avid proponent of Prohibition. Niebuhr, with perhaps a truer sense of humanity, thought it was all a big mistake. On another occasion, Morrison tried to organize a movement simply to discuss important issues without becoming political. Niebuhr called it "pure moonshine."

The magazine took up the causes of organized labor, child labor, universal suffrage, and Native American rights, and during the war it launched a crusade against the internment of Japanese Americans. After the war The Christian Century, with Kyle Haselden as editor, focused on civil rights, advocating for equal rights for all Americans. Martin Luther King, Jr., was invited to be a contributing editor and submitted articles. When he wrote "A Letter from the Birmingham Jail"--addressed to white clergy in Birmingham, Alabama, who had asked him to have patience and not push so hard for change--he sent it to The Christian Century, which was first to publish it in its entirety. In fact, it was edited by Dean Peerman, who graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1959, went to work for The Century that year, and is still in his office, until recently using his manual Olympia typewriter. Peerman and Martin Marty marched together at Selma, Alabama, and came home to write about it powerfully in the magazine.

The Christian Century has ventured into the dangerous field of national politics on occasion, particularly with the resurgence of political conservatism in the Republican Party, which seemed to Century editors as unfortunate and unhelpful and not consistent with the deepest Christian values and hopes. Editor Kyle Haselden felt compelled to express his criticism of the Republican presidential candidate's positions in an editorial titled "Goldwater, No." He retired shortly thereafter and his successor, Alan Geyer, felt that he could not just let that hang out there, so he wrote the counterpoint: "Johnson, Yes." The Internal Revenue Service was alerted by none other than Billy James Hargis of the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, which had recently lost its tax-exempt status. The IRS agreed, and for several years the magazine operated without tax exemption.

All the while, The Century was a consistent voice for ecumenism, reflecting Morrison's 1910 experience in Edinburgh. He personally reported on the Federal Council of Churches (founded in 1908), and the magazine applauded, reported on, and supported the new National Council of Churches (founded in 1950 out of the FCC and other organizations) and the World Council of Churches (launched in 1948).

We are in a very different place today. The decline of the mainline churches in North America is so studied, lamented, observed, and exegeted as almost to be a cliche. No one knows that more than this Presbyterian, who can remember how we made news when our Stated Clerk, Eugene Carson Blake, appeared on the cover of TIME magazine with Episcopal Bishop James Pike at the launch of what became the Consultation on Church Union. It is documented thoroughly and eloquently. Douglas John Hall calls it the end of Christendom, and it surely is that. Hall also says it is the opportunity for the church to find itself. Marty traced the side-lining of the Colonial Big Three as America has diversified and urges us not to abandon who we are and what we do best--build community, educate for human rights, and advocate for the environment that is under assault. (6) Phyllis Tickle used the image of an every-500-year rummage sale in a way that is both encouraging and frightening--encouraging, because the result is always something new and better and more faithful (and a reconstituted older form of the church that is now leaner, more viable, and more faithful; says Tickle, the faith always spreads dramatically); frightening, if you worry or suspect that your traditions and practices might be among the items pulled out of the attic and unceremoniously dumped. (7)

The Christian Century's response to this new place in which we find ourselves is to invest a little more energy and attention in congregations where Christian faith is taught and nurtured, where discipleship is shaped and formed, and where pastors lead. My hope is that The Century will continue to be an irreplaceable resource to congregations struggling to be faithful, sometimes against very difficult odds, and pastors who lead and who must stand up before congregations every week, in these daunting times, and say something faithful and useful--and to do that without losing the prophetic edginess and the thoughtful cultural and political critique that we continue to believe is a unique and important and maybe lifesaving role to play.

I was invited to speak about "The Christian Century: Past, Present, and Future." In terms of the past, we are much less sanguine about identifying any century as the Christian century. The twentieth century, in addition to a time of unprecedented and unimaginable advances in communication, travel, and healthcare, turned out also to be one of the most tragic of centuries in ways so familiar I do not need to document beyond two words: Holocaust and Hiroshima. At the end of the twentieth century no one with their senses about them was suggesting that it was a Christian century and that the Reign of God had finally come. Yet, insofar as Christianity has to do with a radical, unconditional, healing, divine love incarnate, alive, active, and working in human history, every century, including the twentieth, and the twenty-first, is, in fact, a Christian century. Christ is present. The Reign of God does come.

What I do not know is what kind of church is coming. Somewhere between what I see and what I hope for is an emerging church that is incarnational, in terms of its love for and deep involvement in the life of the world; ecumenical in terms of relationships among churches, denominations, communions; united in faith and hope and gratitude: and inner-faith; open to the world and religious truth and practice of the world's people. I think 1 see hints of what is coming. I have five married adult children and thirteen grandchildren, all of them attending and involved in churches. One family is deeply committed to the parochial school their three daughters attend and the parish church they attend, when they are not attending Sunday School at Fourth Presbyterian. They simply do not seem to care at all about the historic reasons Catholics and Protestants have created to criticize and demean one another when they were not engaged in killing one another. I was invited to participate in Ella's First Communion, and I did. She received a Bible at Fourth Presbyterian and--her mother told me--keeps it under her pillow and sleeps on it. If we do not get in the way, the children will show us how to be and how we are one holy catholic church. Jimmy Breslin got it right when he said about any church that calls itself "catholic": "Here comes everybody."

Two of our families are becoming disillusioned and impatient with their church because, until recently, it was not very welcoming to a daughter and a sister because of sexual orientation. I pray every day that we will not lose them and that they will not give up on the church. When my adult children hear that I am going to yet another meeting to talk about gender and sexual orientation equality in the church, they say, in unison, "Dad! Are you still talking about that? Don't you know that the world has moved on?" Even Pope Francis gets it!

Robert Putnam and David Campbell have offered helpful insight. (8) The 1960's were a literal revolution in terms of cultural values, war, gender roles, feminism, drugs, civil rights, and, of course, sex. In 1960, eighty percent of young adults thought premarital sex was always wrong. By 1970, that percentage had flip-flopped, so that twenty percent thought premarital sex was wrong, and eighty percent did not. That was huge, and so was the reaction, the aftershock: a resurgent conservative evangelicalism and an emerging political force, the Religious Right. We found ourselves in the midst of a cultural war that the political right essentially hijacked. Young adults, Putnam and Campbell say, dismayed at what they were hearing and seeing about religion from the right, walked out in droves and have not come back. The religion they saw in the media was harsh, self-confident to the point of arrogance, and downright mean--and irrelevant to the world in which they were living. They are not atheists or even secular. They believe in God and read religious literature, and some even pray, but they do not go to church.

Whatever church emerges will have moved past the public battle over the hot-button issues and will, I hope and pray, be as shockingly open to the world and as radically inclusive as its Sovereign is. Whatever church manages to live into the future will be a lot less obsessive about guarding its traditions and getting its rules and doctrines right than it is about getting Jesus right, when he sat down at the table and broke bread and drank wine with the many people his religion regarded as unfit and unclean. I pray that whatever church emerges will take it essential unity half as seriously as Jesus did. Are you as haunted as I am by his words, among his very last words? "Holy Father, protect them ... so that they may be one, as we are one" (Jn. 17:1 lb); "that they may all be one ... so that the world may believe that you have sent me" (Jn. 17:21); "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn. 13:35). (9)

Hans Kung said some time ago that the new ecumenism must be interfaith. [source?] The twenty-first century, the future, is calling us to a new openness to one another in the global community, to acknowledge truth that is bigger than anyone's parochial, exclusive truth. University of Chicago Professor of Modern Jewish History and Thought, Paul Mendes-Flohr, has reminded us that we are all called to more than tolerance and that Goethe said, "To tolerate is to insult." (10) We must, he says, acknowledge that within any monotheism there is a tendency toward intolerance and worse and that the challenge before all of us is to maintain "fidelity to the theological positions and values of one's religious community" while acknowledging "the cognitive and spiritual integrity of other faith commitments." (11) As I read his very provocative essay in Criterion, the journal of the University of Chicago Divinity School, I thought: This means we really must stop trying to eliminate one another by converting or killing.

The goal is something he calls "dialogical tolerance," (12) a path of mutual acknowledgement and understanding, without compromising one's own faith commitments. You can do that if faith means something more than creeds and doctrines and dogma--if what you experience and trust as divine revelation is not a disclosure of divine truth but a disclosure of divine presence, if religion is not a "dispensation of privilege knowledge" so much as trusting the sacred, the mysterious holy among us. After all, Jesus did not come to give us better beliefs but to give us God's presence, God's essence, God's love.

We cannot even begin to talk about that until we get our own unity right. It is not a literal add-on to the gospel but is at the heart of the gospel: "that they may be one ... so that the world may believe." What the world sees of religion is mostly disgraceful. We must not let go of the vision--the hope--that we believe is in the heart of God and of the unity of the church. Was there ever a more poignant plea than this, written from a prison cell? "I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. 4:1). Paul's thoughts in prison had taken wing and had begun to soar. In Christ, God has started a new humanity, with a plan to heal divisions, break down walls of hostility, a plan to unite all things. As he sits there in his filthy jail cell, he says "he is our peace" (Eph. 2:14). In him God means to bring together the whole human race.

Marcus Barth said that "making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit" (Eph. 4:3) is much too mild. It is hardly possible to render exactly the urgency in the Greek word: passion, full effort, physical as well as emotional and spiritual. Do it now! Take pains to do it! Do whatever it takes to get it done! As we do the important work before us, as we look backward and forward, we must not let go of that beautiful ecumenical vision and hope.

(1) Karen Armstrong, The Case for God (New York: Knopf, 2009).

(2) Ibid., p. 262.

(3) The Christian Century, July 7, 1910, reprinted in 101 (July 4-11, 1984): 660.

(4) Ibid., p. 663.

(5) Harold E. Fey, "Seventy Years of the Century," The Christian Century 95 (October 11, 1978): 950.

(6) See Martin Marty, The Protestant Voice in American Pluralism (Athens, GA, and London: University of Georgia Press, 2004).

(7) See Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008).

(8) Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, with the assistance of Shaylyn Romney Garrett, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010).

(9) Biblical quotes are from the R.S. V.

(10) Paul Mendes-Flohr, "The Promise and Limitations of Interfaith Dialogue," Criterion 50 (Spring/Summer, 2013): 2, quoting Emil Straiger, ed., Goethe Werke (Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1966), vol. 6 ("Spruche), p. 507.

(11) Mendes-Flohr, "The Promise and Limitations," pp. 2 and 4.

(12) Ibid., p. 4.