The Canadian Lutheran: Our Most Popular Articles in 2014

ONLINE – As 2015 gets underway, The Canadian Lutheran is looking back over the last year to see which articles published online were our most popular.

Our most popular feature article of 2014 is also one of our most recent. Dr. Karl Persson’s “The Shadow of Christmas,” exploded in popularity after its December 17 publication. The article reflects on an often-overlooked aspect of the Christmas story—the slaughter of the innocents under Herod.

“How can this be good news?” Persson asks. “Is our faith no more than a clash of kings, where we celebrate how the Chosen One—the Messiah—escaped, with little thought for the innocent victims caught in between? Is the kingdom of God just another ‘game of thrones’? What kind of faith can be perverse enough to have such a story as its backdrop? What kind of miracle would it take to redeem such a story? The angels appear to the shepherds, singing, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’ Can we, in good conscience, sing with them?”

Find the answer to these questions in the rest of Persson’s article here.

Other well-read articles included a number of movie reviews by Rev. Ted Giese. In a year that saw numerous Christian movies and biblical epics hit the theatres, perhaps it’s not surprising that the most popular reviews were Son of God, Noah, and Heaven is for Real.

By far the most well-read series of articles over the past year was coverage of the fire at Concordia Lutheran Seminary in Edmonton. The seminary suffered a fire on the evening of November 12. A few days later we learned, sadly, that the fire’s cause was not accidental. Despite the setback, the seminary community banded together, continuing classes offsite until they were able to return to the building on November 25.

Other articles on major national and international news were also popular. Following June’s shooting tragedy in Moncton, the story of a Lutheran pastor ministering to the community attracted a lot of attention. So too Lutheran Church–Canada President Robert Bugbee’s call to prayer following October’s shooting in Ottawa was widely read and shared online. Reports on the rising persecution of Christians in Iraq as well as continuing coverage of the crisis in Ukraine likewise drew attention in 2014.

Finally, a number of other assorted articles received high-readership over the past year, including the stories “Most Canadian Christians never read the Bible,” “Why should I go to Church?,” “Brazilian Lutherans’ Christmas Carol video goes viral,” and “Jesus’ ‘wife’ no more: New evidence suggests fragment a forgery.”

Did one of your favourite articles from 2014 not make the list? Let us know in the comments below.

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