Christian Challenge Magazine Ceases Publication

Publication Of Longtime Anglican Magazine Suspended, But Board Launches Effort To Make Nearly Half Century Of Editions Accessible For Research

The Board of Directors for the Washington-based Christian Challenge magazine has announced, with regret, a decision to suspend publication of the longtime orthodox Anglican journal, citing chiefly the wide-ranging impact of Internet communications and the significant transition underway within the conservative Anglican movement. However, the magazine’s sponsoring organization, the non-profit Foundation for Christian Theology (FCT), will seek to continue serving the movement via an effort to make The Challenge’s reporting of nearly 50 years of pivotal church history more easily accessible for research.

An FCT initiative to establish an online news and commentary service may be considered later.

PUBLISHED SINCE 1962, and edited by Auburn Faber Traycik since 1986, The Christian Challenge (TCC) has offered broad coverage and analysis of Anglican affairs from the orthodox viewpoint.

Southern Cone Archbishop Gregory Venables is among those who have hailed TCC for its “comprehensive and reliable reporting,” and its uniqueness among conservative Anglican publications, due to its independence, unusual longevity, and the fact that it has long tracked both establishment and extramural Anglicanism.

Even some who do not share all of TCC’s theological commitments have found it of singular value. On the occasion of the magazine’s 40th anniversary in 2002, Pamela W. Darling, ThD – a church historian formerly on the Episcopal General Convention staff - wrote that back copies of The Challenge “are invaluable primary sources for understanding responses to 20th century changes in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.” The magazine “continues to impress me with [its] breadth of coverage – people, movements, issues – and a level of detail not available anywhere else,” Dr. Darling wrote.

First edited by Dorothy Allen Faber, The Challenge was the fruit of an encounter at the 1961 General Convention of a small group of concerned Episcopalians who decided that they needed a means of defending the historic faith, which they discerned - even then - was under threat within their church.

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