Sorting by

×
Skip to main content
MagazineReviews

Finding Ourselves After Darwin: A Book Review

Due in large part to the continued media attention given to creationists and their agenda, Christianity is sometimes thought of as anti-science and very dogmatic. However, Finding Ourselves After Darwin, shatters this stereotype as the authors discuss many different viewpoints and perspectives on Christian theology, which are all supportive and accepting of modern evolutionary biology. The ideas presented in the book can open up new discussions on topics that Christians have dealt with for centuries and demonstrates two major points.…
July 15, 2020
ChurchCultureEssaysTheology

Defense and Discernment: Bearing Witness in Suspicious Times

https://youtu.be/8bFkjb3txFY We live in suspicious times. I wore a mask during my most recent trip to the grocery store. As I was checking out, I noticed an unmasked woman glaring at me. No words were exchanged, and yet I got the distinct feeling that she was saying something like: “oh, so you’re one of them.” It is entirely possible that I misread her body language, or that I was feeling overly sensitive, or that she was the one feeling judged…
June 18, 2020
ChurchCultureEssaysTheology

The Life You Save May Not Be Your Own: Loving Our Distant Neighbors in a Time of Pandemic

https://youtu.be/NtMgj5fZN0A On March 27, the New York Times reported that although in some respects COVID-19 was uniting Americans in a common experience, it was also exposing fractures in our society: “A kind of pandemic caste system is rapidly developing: the rich holed up in vacation properties; the middle class marooned at home with restless children; the working class on the front lines of the economy, stretched to the limit by the demands of work and parenting, if there is even…
Essays

Ancient Paths For a New Future: A Sabbatical Reflection

This is what the LORD says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16 Out beyond the stacked stone walls, beyond the moldboard plow perched upon it, beyond the rocky soils of the now dormant cornfield, beyond the flock of sheep picking about the leftover harvest trimmings, a fiery explosion of fuchsia blossoms detonates, shattering the muted…
June 16, 2020
Poetry

Refracted

by Debra L. Freeberg What happens at the end of life to the stored treasures of knowledge and memory? To the books of language fruit dripping with meaning, consequence, and flavor. To the closely held memories of touch and kiss and embrace. To snapshot beauty: a flicker of creation glory stored across decades of memory. What happens to the sum of our experiences, gifts so essential to the vital force of the breathing world but rendered inaccessible by a final…
July 26, 2019
Inside Out

Dusty Endings

Though Easter was a huge deal in my family, we never did Ash Wednesday when I was growing up. No service, no imposition of ashes. And although my parents adored the Advent season (during which we had many family traditions, including daily lighting of our Advent wreath and daily chocolate ending from our Advent calendars), Lent was completely ignored. (Lest you think we were complete spiritual slackers, we still had daily family devotions, as we always did.) Naturally, we didn’t…
Poetry

The Return of the Prodigal

after Henri Nouwen’s studyof Rembrandt’s paintingof Christ’s parable I look at the handsembracing            clutching               caressing                 the hands I can only seebecause Rembrandt saw them for me  the hands as seenin the light            Nouwen shone on themhis power of suggestion  & insightmaking me wonder how I’d viewthem on my own The younger son in meabsorbs their reassuring firmness the elder                only considers my place & the father I am                though a faintimitation               is dancing
April 29, 2019