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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
Essays

Judgment Day/Justice Day

I suppose everyone has a guilty pleasure. Mine happens to be 80s action flicks. Recently, on one of those rare evenings that occur roughly quarterly, when the house was still and the laundry caught up, I screened Terminator: Genisys. Though not technically an 80s film, I reasoned, as an attempted reboot of the venerable franchise, it fit the bill. Spoiler alert: it’s not a good film. But it does present a pretty compelling theological trojan. The narrative crux of the…
October 31, 2017
Essays

Crab Apple Trees and New Creation

The crab apple trees were in full bloom, pink and teeming with life. They were full of spring’s best promises: Winter had gone, and new life had come. I could see them below my fifth-floor study carrel at Western Theological Seminary’s Beardslee Library. The month of May in that second year of seminary meant final exams and turning in papers and projects. It also meant grief and, mysteriously embedded in it, a growing sense of call. The month of May…
October 31, 2017
As We See It

The Dust and the Glory

“I learned a lot of things in medical school, but mortality wasn’t one of them.” So begins the bestselling 2014 book by surgeon and Harvard Medical School professor, Atul Gawande. I suspect that many today could reframe this sentence in light of how they have been formed in Christian discipleship. “I have come to know and love much about the gospel in my years in the church community. But learning to die, or to be with the dying, isn’t one…
October 31, 2017
Essays

Where Are They Now?

Last year was difficult for the congregation I serve as pastor. While deaths and funerals are regular parts of congregational life, we suffered more deaths than most years and said goodbye to many saints as they entered the church triumphant. In this particular season, most were male, and many grieving widows remained. Sensing a need for ongoing pastoral care and support, I gathered these women to meet for conversation and prayer. During these conversations, we unearthed and explored a deep…
October 31, 2017