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Essays

Wrestling with Miracles

As a scientist, I find reading Scripture can sometimes be difficult. I believe that the Bible is the living word of God, a text written for me, even if it is not written to me. But when I encounter stories about a man who walks on water, spit that gives sight to the blind or a crowd who walks through the Red Sea, I sometimes squirm with discomfort. I have the opportunity to teach the miracles of God’s creation every…
April 30, 2016
Poetry

Tornado

Fir needles like rattling bones. The air a myth that has been told and retold, fading from emerald to onyx. My skeleton soft like honey, I am a bowl at the edge of the table, waiting to be spilled. The bold silence. Fallen water pooling over asphalt. Fear so absolute it must be forgotten. Heather Cadenhead graduated from Union University and is the mother of two boys, one of whom is on the autism spectrum. She writes at frayedflowers.com. Image…
April 30, 2016
Essays

Let Us Behold

In his monograph Called to the Life of the Mind, Richard Mouw recalls teaching his first philosophy class, which included the thought of the philosopher Anaxagoras of Klazomenai. He mentions (via Josef Pieper) that Anaxagoras, “while engaging in catechetical exercise, answered the question, ‘Why are you here on earth?’ with the stark reply ‘To behold.’” In Only the Lover Sings, Pieper applied the comment to artistic endeavors, while Mouw expands the context to “all that we encounter in our scholarship.”…
April 30, 2016
Poetry

Before My Son’s Autism Diagnosis

Nine months of darkness, then the sound of scissors and we separate. I thought I’d love you because you were part of me, feathered limb of a sumac— but it was like falling asleep. Something I did without fear of consequences. That first night, you made the house ache with your sadness. Open mouth of a baby bird, longing. But you took nothing, the thing I begged you not to take. Something I didn’t know how to give. Heather Cadenhead…
April 30, 2016
As We See ItScience

Science and Faith: My Personal Journey

For most of my life, I have been a carefree young-earth creationist. Because I had no reason to believe otherwise, I assumed the creation of the world played out precisely as described in Genesis 1 and 2. That’s what my teachers seemed to believe, that’s what my parents seemed to believe, and that was, apparently, the only real Christian way to approach the matter. The theory of evolution was reserved for poor heathen atheists who because they refused to acknowledge…
April 30, 2016
EssaysScience

For I Am Convinced

I was one of those kids who always responded to altar calls. Being raised in a conservative Christian household during the turbulent ‘60s, I had plenty opportunities to answer them. The moving words of pastors, evangelists, youth leaders and summer camp counselors appealed to me. Some speakers made me feel unsure of my salvation and fearful of eternal torment. Others walked me down the aisle with descriptions of Christ’s love and his sacrifice for me. Members of both communities asked,…
April 30, 2016
Inside OutScience

The Rocks and Colliding Black Holes Cry Out

“Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’” – Luke 19:39-40 “Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?” There I stood in front of 29 eighth-grade students, my daughter among them, having to speak truth about Adam and Eve’s navels. “Probably,” I responded. There was a gasp, then an explosion of chattering. “How could they, if God created…
April 30, 2016
Reviews

A Sobering Diagnosis for Christian Higher Education

A Future for American Evangelicalism A FUTURE FOR AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM: COMMITMENT, OPENNESS, AND CONVERSATION HAROLD HEIE WIPF & STOCK, 2015 156 PAGES $20 With the publication of A Future for American Evangelicalism: Commitment, Openness, and Conversation, Harold Heie, one of the giants of evangelical Christian higher education in North America, presents us once again with an innovatively constructed book. Full disclosure requires that I mention my participation in an earlier volume of similar type, titled Evangelicals on Public Policy Issues:…
April 30, 2016
Essays

Live As Saints (Not Heroes): Justice and Jesus

When one of the authors met little Kunthy and Chanda in Cambodia, they were 11-and 12-year-old girls living as children should live – going to school, playing, laughing. They were free. But only months earlier, these young girls were living as chattel, kept prisoner by the adults in their lives who profited from their daily rape. The girls were beaten if they tried to go outside of the brothel in which they were held. They were beaten if they cried…
February 29, 2016