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Inside Out

Election Soup

“I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” – Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 My campaign-season malaise did not ebb on election day, not that I expected it to. I know I’m in good company. What’s more, I know my malaise as a white person with resources is as…
January 2, 2017
As We See It

Time for Gerard Manley Hopkins

What can I say after the U.S. election? So many people are already saying so many things, which makes me hesitant to add to the noise. I’m weary; words feel weary; the world itself feels weary. As it did to the Gatherer at the end of Ecclesiastes, the world feels full of terrors, broken things and dust. The sloganeering is as worn-out as old bumper stickers on a Nalgene water bottle, and the cup we’re forced to drink tastes like…
January 2, 2017
As We See It

More than a Feeling

My mother-in-law has a fondness for American peanut butter. It used to be hard to find in France. When she came to the United States for a visit, we made sure we had a supply ready for her. She attributed her liking of peanut butter to her school days. After World War II, she attended a boarding school run by Roman Catholic nuns. Good food was scarce, especially protein. Every day she and her classmates would line up to receive…
November 2, 2016
As We See It

Sacraments Sustain Weak Faith

Life is difficult. Faith in God helps. Keeping the faith, even faith the size of a mustard seed, also is difficult. The dimly burning wick of the candle of faith endures by using the sacraments. Deadly sins, such as greed, pride, sloth, gluttony, lust, wrath and envy, cause us to put our trust in the idols they produce. Those idols don't help; instead, they distract and consume us. Also, guilt, shame and anxiety can loosen our grip on our convictions.…
November 2, 2016
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
Poetry

Resurrection

They lean over balconies, strain to hear through thick silence, dangerously close to the edge of sky and star, where time smudges into forever, they listen. It is there.  A breath – a great inhalation of life, a calm, rhythmic heartbeat. The universe quivers with delight, the heavens rock with stomp and leap and pirouette until the very planets shake. Death slinks back to its catacombs and darkness recedes to its hollow. Only light remains. Nadine Ellsworth-Moran pastors a small…
November 1, 2016
Barth's Church Dogmatcs
Reviews

Carrying that Weight Together

Bearing the Unbearable BEARING THE UNBEARABLE: TRAUMA, GOSPEL, AND PASTORAL CARE DEBORA VAN DEUSEN HUNSINGER WM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING CO., 2015 $20 179 PAGES Many mainline Protestants have a strange relationship with trauma. Our newspapers and prayer lists are strewn with stories of traumatic events. Stories of refugees fleeing war, racial aggressions on college campuses and sexual abuse of children are so common that they have nearly faded into white noise in our news cycle. But even given how ubiquitous…
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