Why I'm Archiving My Christian Century Content
Between 2012 and 2022, I published content with The Christian Century—four blog posts early in my writing career, and six months of unpaid work in 2021-2022 that was ultimately rejected. In December 2025, I requested that any unpaid content be removed from their website. This essay explains why, and why I'm preserving that work here with documentation of where it originally appeared.
The Short Version
The Christian Century, which claims that it “stands as a voice of reason and openness,” has demonstrated a clear and convincing pattern of marginalizing veteran voices in theology. I personally can attest that they platform civilian theological authorities to evaluate veteran writing while rejecting veteran theological critique of civilian bias.
After investing six months of unpaid academic labor in good faith, based on an explicit request for my intellectual capital, my work was rejected not for scholarly deficiency but for refusing to defer to the civilian theological authority structure it was critiquing. I cannot allow my work to remain associated with an institution that overtly exploits the social and political capital of military families—a federally protected class.
The Longer Story
In November 2021, a senior editor at The Christian Century reached out about a blog post I'd submitted. They declined it, but the editor said "there is a lot that is of interest here" and wondered about my "willingness to explore these ideas at more depth." They affirmed: "I do believe there is a much richer conversation that needs to be had and I think your voice is a significant one in this."
I was explicit from the start about my project: challenging how "toxic pacifism distorts Biblical interpretation and produces harmful stereotypes that demean Christians who are or were in the military." The editor encouraged this work and asked me to develop it deeper. In December 2021, she specifically requested: "We also will need you to walk us through how you came to understand the term 'toxic pacifism' and why you find it necessary and compelling."
For three months, I did exactly what she asked. I added biblical exegesis of Luke 3:14 and Luke 7, historical context about Herodian military forces and auxiliary recruitment, engagement with New Testament scholarship (particularly Christopher Zeichmann's work), and a careful argument about how civilian bias affects biblical interpretation. The editor consistently praised the work: "I really think you are making serious progress."
In February 2022, the piece went to the wider editorial team for approval. That's when everything changed.
The Rejection
The rejection wasn't about my biblical interpretation. As I noted immediately in my response, they offered "no critique of my actual interpretation." Instead, the editors explained that they wouldn't publish critique of evangelical scholars Richard Hays and George Kalantzis because the editors "see Hays and Kalantzis as ensconced in evangelical circles, so they are not that inclined to entertain arguments against them on this particular point since they probably already disagree with them on any number of other points."
This was tribal gatekeeping, not editorial judgment.
The proposed solution revealed an even deeper problem. The editors wanted me to "set yourself up in conversation with a biblical scholar you basically trust" (meaning one they trusted) to validate my interpretation. When I asked for clarification about what "self-criticism" meant, the editor explained:
"When I said self-critical, I don't mean of you or of military members of any kind. I meant that the Century likes to engage in self-critique, so if you can find someone whose work is respected and admired in these circles and then show a new dimension from your own experience, the critique falls back on the scholar and so on the Century."
Translation: I could only critique their approved scholars, my lived experience must remain supplementary (adding "a new dimension"), and the critique must "fall back on" the Century—making them the enlightened recipients rather than examining their own gatekeeping.
I saw the catch-22 immediately: I was being required to defer to the civilian theological authority that is the very problem I'm trying to address. When I pointed this out—that my essay had been "self-critical enough" and that "civilians in the Church have failed to be sufficiently self-critical"—the editor admitted she couldn't help navigate this institutional resistance: "A lot of your work is based in polemic and very little of mine is."
By March, after I continued refusing to subordinate my interpretation to their approved scholars, all feedback became about "tone." The editor explicitly said she was "listening for tone more than content" and looking for "red flags" on behalf of her colleagues.
The Decade-Long Pattern
This wasn't an isolated incident. In 2011, The Christian Century published Stanley Hauerwas—a civilian pacifist theologian—reviewing a veteran's book he claimed was about “What War Does to Warriors.” They gave civilian theological authority the platform to evaluate veteran writing about military experience. My After the Yellow Ribbon conference was one month prior, an event Hauerwas chose not to attend.
In 2022, the Century refused to review my book God is a Grunt and More Good News for GIs (Hachette), which addressed similar themes from a veteran's theological perspective.
Between 2012 and 2014, they accepted blog posts from me that didn't challenge civilian theological authority. In 2021-2022, they solicited work critiquing "toxic pacifism," encouraged its development for three months, then rejected it on tribal grounds unrelated to the critique they'd requested.
The pattern is clear:
The Christian Century privileges civilian theological voices on military topics while marginalizing veteran voices that challenge that authority structure.
About the Editor
I want to be clear about something: the senior editor who worked with me on this piece was personally supportive throughout the entire process. She encouraged the work, praised its development, and was honest about institutional constraints she faced. In fact, she disclosed to me that she had personal experience with the same theological authority structure that marginalized me—she;
started [her] PhD in the religion department [at Duke], but finished it in the Literature Program, in part because Hauerwas had made the religion department a very inhospitable place for people like [her].
She was caught between personal conviction that this conversation mattered and institutional barriers she couldn't overcome. She warned me in advance: "The next tricky part is sharing it with my team. I'm batting below .500." She knew institutional approval was uncertain even as she personally supported the work.
When the editorial board rejected the piece, she was transparent about the conflict: "I am thinking that there is a divide between what I think might work and what I want or can bring to my colleagues." She acknowledged that she was "listening for tone more than content" because that's what her colleagues required.
This is not about one editor's failure. This is about institutional structures that even sympathetic editors cannot overcome. She understood the marginalization because she'd experienced it herself. But understanding it didn't give her the power to change it.
I'm grateful for her honesty and the genuine effort she made to advocate for this work within constraints I now understand better. The problem is the system, not the individuals trying to navigate it.
Why This Matters
I spent six months in 2021-2022 developing work at The Christian Century's explicit request. I was never compensated. The work was rejected not because my biblical scholarship was flawed but because I wouldn't defer to civilian theological authorities as a condition of publication.
More fundamentally: The Christian Century's institutional practices demonstrate systematic untrustworthiness toward military families. They solicit veteran voices, encourage development of critique, then enforce tribal boundaries and require deference to the authority structures being critiqued. When veterans refuse subordination, the work gets tone-policed and rejected.
This pattern causes real harm. When Christian publications platform civilian theological evaluation of military experience while rejecting veteran theological critique, they reinforce the marginalization that contributes to military suicide rates, stigma around seeking help, and the isolation veterans experience when trying to engage faith communities.
Military families are a federally protected class. The institutional gatekeeping The Christian Century practices—requiring veteran voices to validate civilian theological authority before being heard—perpetuates discrimination against that class.
Why I'm Archiving This Work
I've requested that The Christian Century remove any content for which I was not compensated. I cannot allow my work to remain associated with an institution whose practices harm my community.
But I'm preserving that work here for several reasons:
Documentation matters. The blog posts I wrote in 2012-2014 show what The Christian Century was willing to accept before I challenged civilian theological authority. They're evidence of the pattern.
My labor has value. Whether or not they paid me, I wrote those pieces in good faith. The ideas and arguments belong to me, not to the institution that hosted them.
Readers deserve access. People who found value in that work shouldn't lose access to it because of institutional dysfunction.
Transparency requires evidence. When I say The Christian Century has a decade-long pattern of marginalizing veteran voices, I need to be able to show my work. Screenshots and archived links document that the content existed where I said it did.
What I'm Not Doing
I'm not trying to destroy The Christian Century. I'm not claiming everyone there is malicious. I'm not even claiming the editor who worked with me failed—she did everything she could within the constraints she faced.
What I am doing is drawing a boundary: I will not allow my work to be used by institutions that harm military families, even inadvertently. I will not remain silent about institutional gatekeeping that marginalizes veteran voices in theology. And I will not pretend that "tone" critique is anything other than authority policing when it's applied to voices that challenge power structures.
Moving Forward
The work I was doing in 2021-2022 still needs to be done. Civilian bias in biblical interpretation still marginalizes Christian soldiers and veterans. The requirement that veteran voices defer to civilian theological authority before being heard still perpetuates the "toxic pacifism" I was trying to critique.
But that work won't be done through The Christian Century. Their decade-long pattern makes clear they're institutionally incapable of platforming the critique their editorial board explicitly solicited from me.
So I'm doing it here instead. The biblical scholarship I developed, the historical context about military service in first-century Palestine, the argument about how civilian interpreters miss what veteran readers see—all of it remains valid regardless of where it's published.
The Christian Century had first chance at that work. They chose institutional self-protection over truth-telling. That's their prerogative.
It's my prerogative to preserve my labor, protect my community, and ensure the work gets done even if they won't publish it.
Documentation
The blog posts archived here originally appeared at The Christian Century:
"Yes, God Loves Soldiers" (April 2012)
"Making Space for Veterans" (November 2012)
"Christian and Soldier" (November 2013)
"Soldier Saints, Then and Now" (November 2014)
The content was removed from their site at my request in December 2025 after they demonstrated institutional untrustworthiness toward military families.
The 2021-2022 correspondence documenting the editorial process described above is preserved in full and available for review by scholars, journalists, or others documenting patterns of institutional gatekeeping in religious publishing.
