One of the reasons I write you these notes each week, invite you to respond to a question, and share my Friday Zoom calendar is that I don’t see the Century as just words on a page. Ideally it is a conversation, or at least it is human ideas shared by human beings to other human beings. Every essay is written by a person, someone who is lovely and flawed and full of hopes and concerns.
This is why I especially enjoy our Voices section, columns written by the same 12 folks throughout the year. In a year we get to know not just the writers’ ideas, but a bit of their stories and personalities. This week we have two essays from Voices columnists who are new to us in 2025: Kelly Brown Douglas and Peter Choi. Douglas pays homage to the threatened legacy of priest and activist Pauli Murray, and Choi thinks of Jesus while listening to guitar music in Selma.
Our video of the week is the first on our channel to feature live music. Musician and scholar Mark Glanville chats with me about the Ten Commandments, mutual care, and jazz music. Plus scroll down for even more great content, like a reflection on a liberative vision for Christian higher education.
Jon Mathieu Email me: Is there a writer you don’t know personally but whose personality you love? Click to schedule a Friday lunch chat with Jon Click to find Jon on (X/Twitter alternative) Bluesky
“Murray’s struggle for justice was a spiritual quest. It was a call for the nation to recognize the full spectrum of God’s creation—a call that resonates now more than ever.”
“Over and over again, Jesus challenges his interlocutors, destabilizes their settled ways, and invites them to a new path—in a way that makes old things new, even as it also ties the past to the present.”
“A seminary for the people would imagine its work, and the cultivation of its students’ scholarly and pastoral vocations, in terms of what it owes to the public in which it is situated.”
