All Posts By

James Bratt

Blog

Hope from the Pope

From this saga we can glean hope’s core ingredient. There are the predictable humility and gratitude but also the less predictable humor, play, and joy.

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Blog

Virtuous Baggage (and its dark side)

My correspondents admire what I call the triple-S complex in Christian Reformed collective character: sacrificial, sober, and stalwart. But they also see a negative obverse

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Blog

More Virtuous Baggage

Hi Ron: I’m glad to have you for my ideal reader because the stuff I’m discussing in this series can get very heavy and abstract.

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Blog

Virtuous Baggage: I

It’s wrong to dismiss “baggage” as a bad thing. It can also refer to some precious cargo that we can contribute to enrich our new

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Featured

1925

Let’s look back at 1925 to see the portents of the year but also its other possibilities, to compare what looked big at the time

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Blog

Once and Future Presidents

The contrast this week has been striking. The solemn ceremonies and tearful farewells for ex-President Jimmy Carter over against the threats, bombast, and bloviations from

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Blog

Dante’s Advent

For Advent I decided to read through Dante’s Divine Comedy. All of it. I’ve tried twice before.

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Blog

Creation: Launchpad or Limit?

A few weeks ago in this space, Daniel Meeter asked whether there was room for Kuyperians in the Reformed Church in America. His answer was

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