Ideas

CT’s Best Ideas of 2024

A selection of 15 of our most intriguing, delightful, and thought-provoking articles on theology, politics, culture, and more.

CT Best Ideas
Christianity Today December 20, 2024
Illustration by Christianity Today

For many writers, putting hundreds or thousands of words on the page is not the most difficult part of writing. It is rather the ideation phase, the task of coming up with what we call the pitch, the angle, or the take and then determining whether the idea we’ve gotten is worth anything: if it holds together, if it tells the truth, if it might possibly edify the church.

On some blessed occasions, the idea may simply appear, like Gabriel to Mary, an unlooked-for mental gift. Perhaps more often, ideation can be a slog. It recalls less the first chapter of Luke than that of Ecclesiastes: “Is there anything of which one can say, ‘Look! This is something new’?” (v. 10)

However they came about, the 15 articles below (presented in order of publication), are ideas-driven pieces that stuck with CT editors this year. They present fresh insights alongside timeless truths and bring surprising perspectives to both familiar and novel debates. We hope you find them as intriguing, delightful, and thought-provoking as we did.

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