The Christian Century

The Christian Century

Cover of December 14, 2010, issue
Editor/Publisher	Peter W. Marty
Executive editor	David Heim
Categories	Christianity
Frequency	Fortnightly
Circulation	36,000
Publisher	Christian Century Foundation
First issue	1884
Country	United States
Language	English
Website	www.christiancentury.org
ISSN	0009-5281

The Christian Century is a Christian magazine based in Chicago, Illinois. Considered the flagship magazine of U.S. mainline Protestantism, the biweekly reports on religious news; comments on theological, moral, and cultural issues; and reviews books, movies, and music. The Century hosts four blogs, written and edited by Drew Hart, Edward Carson, Beth Shalom Hessel, Carol Howard Merritt, and Steve Thorngate, as well as hosting a network of more than 100 outside bloggers, CCblogs. Matt Fitzgerald hosts a podcast entitled, "Preachers on Preaching".

The Christian Century's current editor and publisher is Peter W. Marty, while David Heim is its executive editor. Rodney Clapp, Philip Jenkins, and Carol Howard Merritt are columnists; other regular contributors include Carol Zaleski, Walter Brueggemann, Barbara Brown Taylor, and Will Willimon. The magazine takes a "liberal" editorial stance.

The magazine describes its mission as follows:

For decades, the Christian Century has informed and shaped progressive, 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.

The Christian Century was founded in 1884 as The Christian Oracle in Des Moines, Iowa, as a Disciples of Christ denominational magazine.

In 1900, its editor proposed to rename it Christian Century in response to the great optimism of many Christians at the turn of the 20th century 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." Around this same time, the Century's offices moved to Chicago.

The magazine did not receive widespread support in its denomination and was sold in a mortgage foreclosure in 1908. It was purchased by Charles Clayton Morrison, who soon labeled the magazine nondenominational. Morrison became a highly influential spokesman for liberal Christianity, advocating higher criticism of the Bible, as well as the Social Gospel, which included concerns about child labor, women's suffrage, racism, war and pacifism, alcoholism and prohibition, environmentalism and many other political and social issues. The magazine was a common target for criticism by fundamentalists during the Fundamentalist - Modernist debate of the early 20th century.