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Essays

Theology in Bronze

T.S. Elliot wrote that at the end of all our journeying we will arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. For me, it took moving to Calvin College, in the heart of Dutch Calvinist West Michigan, to see the richness of the Lutheran landscape where I spent the formative years of my academic career. For 15 years, I trudged uphill to the bluff-top campus of Gustavus Adolphus College, my sights fixed on the soaring 187-foot…
February 28, 2018
As We See It

Shakespeare’s Language Lessons

“He was not of an age, but for all time!” – Ben Jonson Shakespeare indeed was a man of his age. Ask anyone sitting down to read his plays for the first time – with their 16th- and 17th-century language, idioms and references. Nevertheless, Ben Jonson’s message about his friend is obviously true: Shakespeare’s works have spoken to countless eras and cultures in the 400 years since his death, and they continue to do so as we return to his…
February 28, 2018
Essays

Olivier Messiaen: Music as Prayer

VISIONS OF AMEN: THE EARLY LIFE AND MUSIC OF OLIVIER MESSIAEN STEPHEN SCHLOESSER EERDMANS, 2014 $50 570 PAGES CONCURRENTLY RELEASED AUDIO RECORDING: MESSIAEN, VISIONS OF AMEN HYESOOK KIM AND STEPHANE LEMELIN, PIANO WWW.EERDMANS.COM/SCHLOESSER_AUDIO Few composers of the 20th century were as deeply shaped by a theological tradition as was Olivier Messiaen by French Catholicism in the period following the First World War. Born to a literary family – his mother a poet, his father an English teacher and translator of Shakespeare…
David A. Hoekema
February 28, 2018
Essays

Capital versus the World: the Protestant Principle in the 21st Century

In April 2014, Thomas Piketty’s tome on inequality, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, was released in English translation, featuring 577 pages (minus the footnotes) and some 115 or so graphs and illustrations. In May Capital reached the no. 1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list, a fact surprising even to the publisher Harvard, which struggled to meet the furious demand for the book. The central assertion of this behemoth of a text is that capitalism, particularly since the…
February 28, 2018
Essays

Plan A

We’ve all heard a story that goes something like this: In the beginning God created a beautiful and perfect universe. To crown his creation, he made humanity in his own image. Human beings were perfect and immortal. Life was serene and wonderful. There were no predatory animals and no death. But then came the Fall. Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command and plunged creation into decay, destruction and death. The perfect creation was ruined. Now God had to come up…
Daniel Boerman
December 30, 2017
Essays

Though There Are No Grapes

In late April two years ago, I changed the tires on my van, installing the summer tires once again – not such a memorable event and one that I had done also exactly six months earlier. On October 31, 2015, my wife and I had just put on the winter tires and, in all aspects, it was a typical fall day. The two of us were at home with our younger son, getting our property ready for winter. She had…
December 30, 2017
As We See It

How Karl Barth Almost Ruined a Perfectly Good Sunrise

I am in the Black Hills of South Dakota, alone and in the dark, waiting for the sunrise. In the twilight before the bright ball of the sun peeks over the horizon, scattered cloud formations already announce its arrival, and I realize how clouds ought to get more credit for their part in this morning spectacle. Deep, warm colors gradually cool and brighten as the sun climbs and appears over a distant hill. But even as the sun arrives, the…
December 30, 2017
Essays

Choosing between Culture-Making and Soul-Saving

We stepped out of the car into the grassy, gravel courtyard of the evangelical Ethiopian church. We were very late for worship; today was the feast of St. Gabriel, and we had been stuck in traffic as hundreds of Ethiopian Orthodox churchgoers walked past our stranded car, streaming by in their traditional white robes. That was them, this was us: We were evangelicals, and we were going to an evangelical church, a distinction of great importance, we were told. We finally arrived…
December 30, 2017
Essays

Faithful Betrayal

As a professor at Northwestern College, I don’t find it uncommon for my students to raise questions or share perspectives that motivate me to rethink my own views. The rethinking I have in mind right now was sparked by a conversation with a student shortly after her graduation. She had enrolled in seminary and just finished the required reading of Peter Rollins’ text The Fidelity of Betrayal. She loved the book and encourage me to read it, suggesting I would…
December 30, 2017
Essays

Your Worst Life Now: Learning How to Die

Humans have an aversion to death, and rightfully so. Death is not our friend; it is the enemy. Unfortunately, death is also a familiar enemy, visiting every person sooner than later. Physically and biologically, we begin to decay relatively early in life. While 21st-century drugs and technology prolong life, the fight against death is ultimately a losing battle. This is not to suggest that death is something to which we must passively resign ourselves. Life is to be treasured. Thus,…
October 31, 2017