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Essays

Loving God, Each Other and the Truth

Editor’s note: The following is adapted from a chapel talk at Northwestern College, Orange City, Iowa. A salesman driving through rural Iowa has car trouble. He has no cell service, so he walks to a nearby farmhouse. He enters the yard and, looking to his left, sees a pig in a pen. The pig has a wooden leg. The salesman stares for a moment then walks onto the porch and knocks on the door. After the farmer lets him use…
January 4, 2017
Essays

Reincorporating Christus Victor in the Reformed Theology of Atonement

In Christianity’s first centuries, we find vivid depictions of the cross as a fishhook or mousetrap that catches Satan in the act of destroying human life. The mousetrap image seems to come from the Latin version of Augustine’s triumphant statement in his Sermon 134 that the devil, the ruler of this world who will be driven out (John 12:31), caused his own destruction by entrapping Christ in death, bringing about the resurrection. As the Gospels indicted Sadducees, scribes and Jerusalem…
January 4, 2017
Essays

The Lord’s Supper as Welcoming Sacrament? Reversing the Sequence of the Sacraments

Editors' note: In recent years, there has been increasing talk about the sacrament of the Lord's Supper as a feast of welcome and hospitality. Perhaps originally associated with St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, this understanding has gained supporters around the North American church. It is said that in a post-Christian culture, the Lord's Supper is a sacrament to draw people to faith. Baptized or unbaptized, believer, seeker or skeptic, all who are drawn to the Table…
November 1, 2016
Essays

Moved by the Liturgy of Revival

I love high-church liturgy. Smells and bells, processions and litanies, choirs and acolytes – the more the merrier. It might be because of the sere Christian Reformed atmosphere in which I was reared. It might well be a function of my education and social class. (Final exam question for Liturgics 101: "All evangelical academics wind up Anglican. Discuss.") Doubtless a strong factor is my allergy to revivalism and its sundry assumptions, abstracting the person from history and context, subjecting her…
November 1, 2016
Essays

Do Sacraments Matter?

Sacraments are not important in our age of active shooters, terrorist bombings, NFL players sitting at the "wrong" time, reality-star politicians and constant reconstruction of our habits and behaviors according to the latest iPhone (no headphone jack?!).  Such dangers and demands for our time and attention – not debate over a liturgical ceremony – are the real, practical work of the church. The church should be thinking theologically about serious issues, such as the brutality within our social imagination aimed…
November 1, 2016
Essays

America’s Civic Christianity and Paul’s Solution

“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”  – Colossians 3:2 Americans have long expressed concern about the character of their high officials. Opinion polls show that until recently most would have rejected out of hand a presidential candidate lacking religion; many still do. Although a subset of those who insist on a professing executive and who think of the United States as a “Christian nation” recognize the need for religious diversity or speak loosely, small…
September 1, 2016
Essays

U.S. Politics and the Vote: How Can Christians Engage in Meaningful Citizenship?

I am a political science professor at a Christian university with ties to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a denomination in the Reformed tradition. My own background is Calvinist. When I was growing up, it was a given that Christians working in political life were considered to be as much involved in ministry as those going to seminary. The theme “all of life is religion” was a mantra at my college, and we were taught that politics belongs to God. But…
September 1, 2016
Essays

The Maoist Moment in American Conservatism

As of this writing Donald Trump is the presumptive United States presidential nominee for the Republican Party. While it is unclear why Trump has enough popularity to be the nominee (no doubt social scientists and historians will be working on this for a while) the dominant narrative is something along the lines of angry voters tired of “business as usual” politics which do not seem to be paying off for them. So they want to “burn it all down.” What…
September 1, 2016
Essays

Do Not Be Afraid

I had no idea why tears so abruptly filled my eyes. I was crying before I understood why I might be crying. But the sense that the reaction meant something was as real to me as the tears. I was seated alone in a packed crowd at Duke University’s stunning neo-Gothic chapel, listening intently as Scottish composer Sir James MacMillan conducted his St. Luke Passion for choir and orchestra. The core text of the piece is taken word for word…
June 30, 2016