Featured Articles
Terrence Malick: Then and Soon
Readers of Job know these questions (38: 4, 7) compose part of God’s response (such as it is) to Job’s queries about his profuse personal loss–of family, respect, and fortune. Perhaps the only thing unique about Job’s circumstance is that this time, for Job, God bothers to respond at all, a courtesy that even the cross-nailed Jesus does not get in response to his question about forsakenness. In the films of Terrence Malick, these eternally vexing questions replay over and over in innumerable varieties of inexorable wrestle, struggles full of sound and fury, blood and death, and tears and groaning. Still, despite the woe, in Malick film after Malick film, beginning in 1998 with combat film The Thin Red Line, there emerges a sort of luminous splendor, wondrous and revelatory, a counter of sorts to an ever-lurking, predatory evil that randomly devours all, including, horribly, children.
Featured Articles
Scripture Memorization: How to Hear The Voice of God
This is how God speaks—at least in my life. I don’t hear a voice thundering from the sky. It’s certainly not dramatic. It doesn’t even alter the direction of my life. It’s just God, from scripture, gently reminding me of who he is and how he feels about me.
Powerful Women in My Life: A Sharecropper’s Daughter, A Nanny, A Prophet/Priest, A Tribal Leader
What these women offered me was not correction from the outside but transformation from the inside. They offered invitation—an invitation to become someone I did
The revolutionary act of reading together: Why book clubs could save the world
Book clubs are gentle training grounds for something we desperately need: the experience of disagreeing with people we care about, and surviving it.
What is Reformed Theology, Anyway?
Editor’s Note: Following is an excerpt from chapter one, “A Reformed Theology Primer: Misconceptions and Realities,” from Generously Reformed: Theology Rooted Deep and Wide. Slow
What Christian Higher Education Offers That We (Still) Need
From our perspective as faculty at Christian liberal arts institutions, we see the work of Christian higher education as unique and essential. What should set
When the Faucet Runs Dry
Anger has had something of a reputation problem in Christian circles, especially for women. We tend to associate anger with sin. When I was younger,
Where’s Our Belhar?
Belhar did not define unity. It proclaimed it. It reminded the church that Christ had torn down the dividing wall of hostility, and anything that
Latest from the Blog
Daily blog by our regular bloggers & guest contributors.
I Still Believe in Beauty
To create is to insist that destruction will not have the final word.
Laughter at a Monastery, Desert Mothers and Fathers, and the Wisdom of Solitude
I ate my bowl of lentils, growing more and more concerned, until I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye one of the monks
Probes, Prayers, and Promises from Walter Brueggemann
Serendipitously and unintentionally, Walter Brueggemann’s newest book, God of All Promises arrived on my birthday. It came in the usual way: a brown mailer from
The Cartography of Reconstruction
Through making this map, I wanted to surface the things I currently find to be most true in my relationship to God.
Resurrection at the Jamesville Dust Pit
Resurrection looks like an art project hung on a chain-link fence surrounding an empty lot. The transformation has not yet happened. There is still uncertainty
Consider the Lilies and Then Some
I am not proud of this unreasonable anxiety over something that should be pleasurable and satisfying. Contrary to how it may appear, I am a
For You, It’s Not Restricted
My dad said something to an usher, and from that press of people we were singled out and led down a hallway to a closed
Body and Blood to Overcome our Divisions
I approached writing the prayer the same way I approach writing for the Reformed Journal. I’m not employed by an institution and don’t worry about
Reviews
The Courage to Welcome
Welcome drops all boundaries around the sacred space of her home, while her neighbors create impenetrable barriers and include her in their condemnation of the
Generously Reformed
…even with is flaws and shortcomings, the Reformed tradition can be a fruitful pathway for growing deeper into maturity in Christ, for hearing the testimony
Love, Friendship, and Humor: Project Hail Mary (Film)
And most importantly, hope.
The rules don’t apply. We’re not a typical company. A Review of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI
In early April, the artificial intelligence (AI) firm OpenAI announced that it had acquired the technology and business talk show “TBPN.” I had never heard
Friendship, Sacrifice, and…Astrophysics? Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary (Book)
…at the intersection of desperation and hope.
The Outer Edges of Prayer
He declares, “This isn’t / exactly a prayer. It’s more / the unbelieving yelp of prey grabbed suddenly by a wolf . . . .”
God of All Promises: A Poetic Pilgrimage
“I have found possible and useful, in my own practice, to pray back the Bible to God, who dwells therein.”
Salvation, Providence, and the Embodied Gospel in Forevergreen
Through crisp visual effects that combine the feel of claymation and woodcarving, and wordless musical narration that swells at all the right moments to drive
Poetry
Broken Balm
Lifedoes not consistofaccumulatingsmall comfortsbutofaccumulatingmany wounds smalland great heldwith patientcare slowly metabolized and given backto thewoundingandwounded worldasbroken balm. You can hear a conversation about this poem
My Lord I Sit Beige and Bubble Wrapped
My Loud I sit beige and bubble-wrapped when all my friends forskae me for jobs …
In the Precincts of the Holy
The room, replete with what is about to happen, is full as well with coughing …
Imagining Iran, March 2026
We have no uncontaminated words for this
Contemplating the Redactions in the Newly Released Epstein Files
The women—I want to say women, but really they were girls …
Podcasts
“Broken Balm” by Alex Arthurs
In this week’s episode of the Reformed Journal Podcast, the poetry edition, Rose Postma interviews Alex Arthurs about his poem “Broken Balm.” Alex is husband
“My Lord I Sit Beige and Bubble Wrapped” by Alex Mouw
In this week’s episode of Reformed Journal Podcast, Rose Postma talks with Alex Mouw about his poem “My Lord Beige and Bubble Wrapped.” Alex is
“Sowing” by Marjorie Maddox
In this episode of the Reformed Journal Podcast, Rose Postma interviews Marjorie Maddox about her poem “Sowing.” Marjorie is Professor Emerita of English and Creative
“In The Precincts of the Holy” by Jerry Harp
In this week’s episode of the Reformed Journal Podcast, the poetry edition, Rose Postma interviews Jerry Harp about his poem “In The Precincts of the
“Contemplating the Redactions in the Newly Released Epstein Files” by Sara Kay Mooney
In this week’s episode of the Reformed Journal Podcast, the poetry edition, Rose Postma interviews Sara Kay Mooney about her poem “Contemplating the Redactions in
“The Return of Appetite” by Andy Stager
In this episode of the Reformed Journal Podcast, the poetry edition, Rose Postma talks with Andy Stager about his poem “The Return of Appetite.” Andy