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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
Reviews

Learning to Be, Not Do, in Youth Ministry

Poetic Youth Ministry, by Jason Lief POETIC YOUTH MINISTRY: LEARNING TO LOVE YOUNG PEOPLE BY LETTING THEM GO JASON LIEF CASCADE BOOKS, 2015 $21 160 PAGES Poetic Youth Ministry, by Jason Lief, is a disruptive book on youth ministry. Opening with the Disney film WALL•E as an analogy for the challenging identity-formation journey young people face, Lief examines why the “faith scripts” taught in many of our churches often end in tragedy, with our young people choosing a different faith…
Darwin K. Glassford
January 4, 2017
Poetry

Autumn Leaves

It seems the leaves know that they’re done with green of photosynthesis: loosing their stems from tendril grasp, they drop, but glide so far from tree you wouldn’t think that leaves so far had come from distant oak or birch but for the form they clearly bear. Their gliding draws my admiration: Energized from loosing free, though similar in species’ name, leaves that seemed alike on tree, now individual in flight, differ in distance and descent, distinctive in each solo…
January 4, 2017
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