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Essays

What if This Had Been Me? A Gendered Analysis of the Funniest Video Ever

Confession time: I have a guilty pleasure. Some very smart, very sophisticated people I know watch reality TV. The ridiculously staged, morally questionable, emotionally manipulative kind of reality TV. I don’t. But I’ve always had a soft spot for America’s Funniest Home Videos – I’ll laugh shamelessly at other people’s misadventures, bloopers and pratfalls. With Netflix, I rarely watch any television any more, and I can’t remember the last time I watched AFV. But thanks to social media, I still…
August 31, 2017
Essays

The Whole Church Gathered: How Bonhoeffer’s “Discipleship” Speaks to the Church Today

“When children expect something it is impossible to give only part of oneself to them.” ­­– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted in Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Theologian, Christian, Man for His Times: A Biography.  The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins his book Discipleship by saying, “It is not ultimately important to us what this or that church leader wants. Rather, we want to know what Jesus wants.” Bonhoeffer wrote these words after the Gestapo shut down his beloved seminary in Finkenwalde. They…
June 30, 2017
Essays

Dostoevsky and the Panacea for Personal Judgment

Proverbs echo in the wind tunnel of history. We cannot help but hear reverberations of past wisdom in present-day prose. In the Manipulus Florum (“handful of flowers”), for instance, we find the following words attributed to Saint Augustine: “The pride of angels made them demons; the humility of men makes them as angels.” Quite the maxim, isn’t it? In seven hundred years, we haven’t changed all that much. Pride still brings out the worst in us, and humility, the best.…
June 30, 2017
Essays

The Golden Rule and the Spirit of Capitalism

We Americans seem lately to be turning nearly every aspect of life into a competition in which somebody must win and somebody must lose. Many popular TV programs have people competing not just in answering quizzes or solving puzzles but also in activities like singing and dancing. Shows with singing and dancing for their own sake, without the voting or the criticism, are very rare. Romance becomes a competition on programs such as The Bachelor. Comedy Central has a show…
June 30, 2017
Essays

The Truth-Seeking Impulse in Higher Education

When I wrote my most recent statement on how faith informs my work in language and literature, I chose this prompt from Calvin College’s faculty handbook: “Write an essay for the broader Christian community explaining what is at stake in the Christian engagement with your discipline ... Incorporate examples from your own teaching and research.” In my Written Rhetoric class, I’ve recently begun teaching an essay titled “The Braindead Megaphone” from a book of the same name by commentator and…
April 29, 2017
Essays

Give Us a King

When Israel asked for a king, the prophet Samuel warned them that the pomp and power of kingship would come at a high cost. A king would conscript their sons and daughters into his service, would take the best of their harvest and would make them his slaves. “And in that day,” Samuel predicted, “you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day” (1 Sam.…
April 29, 2017
Essays

Reshaping the Picture of Science

Americans of a certain age can think back to the days of their childhood and recall how “Cold War science” was built into their political system and social imagination. The consolidation of technology and power during those days stirred dark fears about the dehumanizing effects of industrialized militaries and computerized decision-making. Now, several decades later, we have become accustomed to such threats, just as we have grown comfortable with the default image of science that produced them. But this image…
April 29, 2017
Essays

Sexuality and the Gospel: My Response to Wolterstorff

A couple of months ago, philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff made big news when he delivered a speech at Neland Avenue Christian Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan, in favor of same-sex marriage. The speech has evoked mixed reviews: Those who desire to see the church affirm monogamous same-sex sexual relationships are ecstatic to have a scholar of Wolterstorff’s stature on their side (however cautiously he may have presented his case), while those committed to the biblical conception of marriage as being between…
February 28, 2017
Essays

You Just Don’t Get It

“You just can’t understand.” It frustrated me when my daughter would tell me, “You just don’t get it. You can’t get it.” I remember the day that she was born. My daughter was 23 hours old when she was placed in my arms by her birth mother. A literal waterfall, a sheet of tears, obscured my view. And when I could see again, I marveled at my miracle, this God-granted miracle girl. This act of love. Her birth mother had…
Debra L. Freeberg
January 4, 2017