Homebrewed Christianity How the Lectionary Kept Me Christian: Diana Butler Bass on Practicing the Year
8 snips
Nov 21, 2025 
Diana Butler Bass, an award-winning historian and author, joins the discussion to explore her new book, A Beautiful Year. She shares how the Christian liturgical calendar, particularly the lectionary, revitalized her faith during the pandemic. Diana dives into how lectionary readings embody an anti-imperial, feminist perspective, illustrating Jesus’ challenge to power. She contrasts the cyclical nature of the Christian year with the linear Roman calendar, while connecting Advent themes to current societal issues and the complexities of Christian nationalism.
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Lectionary As Anti-Imperial Scripture
- Diana Butler Bass reads the lectionary as an anti-imperial, feminist, and creation-centered narrative that sustained her faith during the pandemic.
- She reorganized 900 Substack pieces into 52 readings to make the Christian year a countercultural practice.
Practice The Year Independently
- Practice the Christian year personally if institutional church rhythms break down; Diana did this during pandemic closures.
- Use weekly lectionary readings to maintain community, formation, and an anti-imperial imagination.
Calendars Shape Cultural Power
- The dominant Gregorian/Western calendar encodes Roman imperial values like militarism and transactional economics, shaping secular life.
- The Christian liturgical year offers a spiral, lunar-based alternative story that resists imperial time and orients toward love.
