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Caroline J. Simon

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Augustine for Today

I was recently in church when a man in the congregation stood up and said, "Look, I know you are all going to disagree and maybe hate me for saying this, but I do think that God makes junk. I'm junk. I'm completely mad. I look pretty normal today, but that's the meds. Really I'm completely bonkers. I'm junk. But that's okay because we are all broken. We're all junk. That's how God made us." This was slightly less startling…
Caroline J. Simon
February 1, 2010
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The Alchemy of Grace

"At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly." "While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God." This is the gospel--the good news--of justification in Christ. We have spent many hours thinking hard together about the subtleties of what justification in Christ entails. It is time to ask: Have we begun to understand this gospel? Do we believe it?"While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God." If we are not amazed by these words then we are fooling…
Caroline J. Simon
August 1, 2004
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Community, Rootedness, and Deliverance from Evil

As a Christian, I habitually pray not to be led into temptation and to be delivered from evil. These are times in which those prayers become especially urgent. As war, on whatever front, becomes more likely, we are surrounded with temptations and we desperately need the wisdom to discern good and evil. Political philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain emphasizes that the problem with thinking about the ethics of war is that the very rhetoric of war invites us "to hate without…
Caroline J. Simon
June 1, 2003