Mary Magdalene was a recipient of grace with a story to proclaim.
Save for Jesus Christ and his mother Mary, few biblical figures hold more prominence in the history of Christian art than Mary Magdalene. Paintings and sculptures favor depicting these two Marys not just because they appear frequently in the New Testament but because they play such pivotal roles in the life of Jesus.
Of course, Mary of Nazareth’s identity is uncontested. She is the young betrothed woman who conceived Jesus, God’s Son, and was present with her Son and his followers at various times throughout his earthly ministry, enduring to the end and beyond, when the Holy Spirit compelled the faithful to spread the news of his salvation.
However, the identity of Mary Magdalene has not been so clear. When we track her visual depictions across time, a richly complex and intriguing story emerges that ultimately raises a central question: Who was Mary Magdalene?
When Christian art directs our attention to this Mary, we quickly realize that there is no straight answer. As Diane Apostolos-Cappadona’s latest visual history reveals, Mary Magdalene has been many things to the church worldwide throughout the ages.
In fact, the 2002 exhibit “In Search of Mary Magdalene,” curated by Apostolos-Cappadona, featured over 80 works of art and objects depicting Mary Magdalene. Repeated patterns within art history associate her with long hair, an anointing jar, and nudity. She is depicted as the epitome of a penitent sinner and reformed prostitute, renowned for her fervent love of Christ and humility before him. She is recognized for her place at the cross and at the tomb in the garden; she is also remembered for her courageous missionary journeys as an evangelist and preacher.
An excerpt from Peace over Perfection on the command to “be perfect,” the exhaustion of scrupulosity, and rest in Christ.
When I finally came to the life-changing realization that I was a perfectionist, I told a close friend. She laughed. It was already obvious to her then, and in hindsight, it’s obvious to me now. Still, by the time I recognized it, perfectionism had already marked my walk with God for decades.
Psychologists who study perfectionism define it as a personality disposition characterized by extremely high standards and overly critical self-evaluations. These two characteristics are known as “perfectionistic strivings” and “perfectionistic concerns.” Most perfectionists don’t experience perfectionistic strivings and concerns in all areas of life. Rather, their perfectionism is focused on select domains such as sports, work, academics, relationships, physical appearance, or—as is my case, and that of many Christians— spirituality.
I am a Christian perfectionist. My perfectionism is an anti-Midas, turning moments dark at the slightest touch. It twists my view of the past. While I know it’s not fair to expect, say, 19-year-old me to have acted as I would now, when I look back, my predominant feeling is often regret. I should have cared more, known better, been different.
Perfectionism keeps me second-guessing my choices too. It brushes against the desires I have to do good, and what was once a joyful, exciting opportunity to love others becomes beset with self-doubt and questioning. Am I doing this for the right reasons? Is this really God’s will? What if I do more harm than good?
In the past, when I suffered larger failures and committed bigger sins, I often plunged into despair. You will never be good enough. You’re fake. Are you sure you’re ...
Experts debate the origin of the date- or nut-filled pastry, but Middle Eastern believers love the taste and the Good Friday symbolism in its shapes.
The Middle East’s favorite sweet symbolizes Good Friday.
Maamoul is a buttery cookie baked with semolina and stuffed with dates or nuts—usually walnuts or pistachios. Seasoned with a variety of spices, for centuries it has flavored the Easter holiday for Christians, the end of Ramadan for Muslims, and Purim for the Sephardic Jews of Jerusalem.
Three shapes are common: an elongated oval, a circular ring, and a rounded dome. Patterns are pressed into the dough by tweezer or with a traditional wooden mold, often in the shape of a sunburst and sometimes with a cross.
For Christians, the oval resembles the sponge given to Jesus to drink from. The ring, his crown of thorns. And the dome is shaped like his rock-hewn tomb, sealing its scented treasure within.
“Is that so?” asked Hoda Khoury, a Lebanese mother of three adult children, hard at work preparing the sweet. “That’s nice. That would make maamoul a Christian tradition.”
Not all believers know the deeper meaning.
Recipes vary, as do the names. Called kakh in Egypt, kleicha in Iraq, and kombe in southeast Turkey, experts have differing opinions on the cookie’s origin. Many find traces of Pharaonic or Mesopotamian beginnings, some suggesting the imprinted patterns reflect ancient worship of the sun.
Charles Perry, translator of the medieval Baghdad Cookery Book, says maamoul descends from the Persian kulachag, perhaps reflected in the Iraqi name today. Lebanese historian Charles El Hayek suggests the cookie may have originated in the Neolithic period but that the modern sharing of the sweet began in Fatimid Egypt (A.D. 909–1171).
Ultra-modern is the chocolate filling—promoted by Hershey’s Middle East.
Jesus’ lordship is not good news for those who want to use him to become kings themselves.
This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here.
If you’re one of the very-online white nationalists who decided during Holy Week to claim the hashtag “Christ is king” as an antisemitic troll, I’ve got what might seem to you to be both good news and bad news.
The good news: Christ is king. The bad news: He’s a Jew. The even worse news: He’s not the kind of king you think he is.
This week commentator Candace Owens, recently fired by The Daily Wire for anti-Jewish comments, made news as she used the slogan online, allegedly as a response to Daily Wire cofounder, Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish. The phrase was then amplified by so-called “Groypers,” the social media mob assembled around the white nationalist Nick Fuentes, whose singular mission seems to be to put the Mein back in Mein Kampf.
When some—such as on-air talent and executives at Owens’s previous media platform—criticized the use of the slogan, many of those using it pointed out that the words Christ is king represent basic Christian teaching. The words God and damn are, of course, perfectly good biblical words too, but most of us can see that context can change the meaning.
I’m less interested in the nationalist-on-nationalist social media controversy than I am in the much less recognized question behind it: Can “Christ is king” be antisemitic trolling? One could argue yes, and that the first time we find the words referenced as written down, they were just that.
The cross, after all, came with a label affixed to it. Above Jesus’ head were the words Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews, written not just in Aramaic but in Greek and Latin too (John 19:19–22). ...
I serve as a priest in an Anglican church in Dallas, and I have the privilege and responsibility of pastoring many people who have experienced pain at the hands of a church. Some in our congregation have been outright abused. Some have had their faith shaken by the fall of a leader. Some have been pushed out of congregations for asking legitimate questions.
And while church hurt may not always be the best term to name and collect all these different experiences, it is undeniable that many in my own congregation have suffered harm from the body of Christ. There is a distinction between a church hurting someone and the church hurting someone, especially in terms of the healing and reconciliation that must happen locally and person to person. But it is just as important to frame our experiences of pain within the church as a whole.
After all, Paul insists that Christ has one body, the church, being built up in love into the fullness of Christ our head (Eph. 4:4, 15–16). He also insists that when one member of the body suffers, all suffer (1 Cor. 12:26). A robust view of the church as Christ’s body must embrace both the integrity and health of that body and the pain that body experiences from its own members.
In hearing the stories of pain in our congregation, our church has felt the responsibility of caring for these people well. My wife, a licensed counselor, and I wanted to address these hurts in a setting where we could acknowledge their wounds and try to help them take a meaningful step toward healing. So we recently hosted a weekend seminar called “The Pain and Promise of Christian Community.”
We knew that we couldn’t deal with all the complexities of ...
Even if Elevation’s Easter invites don’t spotlight the Crucifixion, it remains central to their worship.
I still remember the crunchy, dissonant chords coming through the speakers of my music history classroom and the repetition of the phrase, “Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”
We were studying Charles Ives’s modern American art song about the founder of the Salvation Army—“General William Booth Enters into Heaven”—and even as I tried to navigate the cacophonous chords and angular vocal lines in my score, I found the language and themes familiar and meaningful.
But the clarinet player sitting next to me had a different reaction. He leaned over and whispered, “Gross.”
Those of us who have grown up in the church singing songs like “There Is a Fountain,” “Nothing but the Blood,” and “The Wonderful Cross” are used to singing about blood. Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection are the center of our faith, and the blood spilled from the body of God incarnate is a symbol and physical reality for those who believe.
So when Elevation Church opted to avoid words or phrases like blood of Jesus in promotional materials for this year’s Easter services, a chorus of online voices accused the megachurch and its pastor, Steven Furtick, of watering down the gospel.
“We’re not going to use the words Calvary, resurrection, or the phrase the blood of Jesus. We won’t use language that will immediately make someone feel like an outsider,” said Nicki Shearer, Elevation’s digital content creator, in an interview with Pro Church Tools.
“If you talk to someone who doesn’t know Christ, they are never going to use the word resurrection … Jesus came back to life again after dying for us. I’d rather ...
Every year, we celebrate a dying and rising God who fulfills the hopes of ages past.
If you’ve ever attended a liturgical church during Holy Week, you’ve likely recited the Apostles’ Creed—a confession that affirms the climactic events of Jesus’ life.
At the heart of this confession, between the phrases “was crucified, died, and was buried” and “on the third day he rose again from the dead,” you’ll find the mysterious (and some might say pesky) phrase “he descended into Hell.”
Although it’s largely overlooked in evangelical churches, dwarfed by the giants of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, Holy Saturday in the liturgical calendar commemorates the day when Jesus’ body laid dead in the grave. But it also honors the “Harrowing of Hell”—an idea that traces back to a handful of verses in the New Testament referring to Jesus’ debated descent into the netherworld.
After all, one verse reads, “What does ‘he ascended’ mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?” (Eph. 4:9). For “After being made alive, [Christ] went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built” (1 Pet. 3:18–20). Later, Peter adds, “For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does” (1 Pet. 4:6, ESV).
That these (and other) verses imply that Christ descended into hell is an interpretation discarded by a number of respected Christian thinkers including Wayne Grudem and John Piper, who argues there’s ...
