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Poetry

Like Water

“Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered …” – 2 Samuel 14:14 In a hospital room of white linen and metal gates he lay as a bowl tilted, emptied of half of himself. (Life absorbs as by a cloth.) We watched his eyes intently then; we had no container to put him in. Weeks later he died in a living room, the vessel emptied, a mirror on the cold wooden floor. It has long since evaporated and…
June 30, 2016
As We See It

‘Reading As If for Life’: My Debt to Frederick Buechner

In Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, David uses the evocative phrase “reading as if for life” to describe his comfort in certain books during a tragic childhood. When I left graduate school after my dissertation proposal was rejected, that is what I did: I read as if for life. At the time, I was a student at the University of Cambridge, and I had invested a year’s worth of research into the project. The rejection was demoralizing, and it meant I…
June 30, 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
Reviews

God as the ‘Principal Clerk’ of the Market

Stories Economists Tell STORIES ECONOMISTS TELL: STUDIES IN CHRISTIANITY AND ECONOMICS JOHN P. TIEMSTRA WIPF AND STOCK $18 191 PAGES In his essay describing the good merchant, Thomas Fuller says, “For God is the principal clerk of the market.” That is, there are three people involved in every commercial transaction. His definition reflects the ethos of an earlier world view, one pervaded by Christian thought patterns. Much has changed, especially because of the Enlightenment, but has Fuller’s formula changed? Even…
June 30, 2016
Inside Out

Do You Want to Be Healed?

“Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem. Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people – blind, crippled, paralyzed – were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, ‘Do you want to get well?’” – John 5:1-6, The…
Thom Fiet
June 30, 2016
As We See It

Forgiving Pope Francis Might Be Good for Us

“In the afterglow of #PopeFrancis’ Apostolic Visit to America, what are your thoughts on the #PopeInUS?” activist and theologian Peter Heltzel, who is also my systematic philosophy professor, optimistically asked Facebook friends one morning after the pope had returned to Rome. But recent disclosures had left some with an unpleasant aftertaste. “I’m struggling with this Kim Davis thing,” one friend responded. Another wrote, “Secret meeting with Kim Davis has removed all afterglow.” Such a shame! The week before, at New York’s 9/11…
June 30, 2016
Essays

Reformed Assessments of Arminianism: Praise from Unexpected Quarters

In a recent article in the Christian Century, Sarah Hinlicky Wilson and Thomas Albert Howard discussed the appropriate ways for Protestants to celebrate the forthcoming quincentennial of Luther’s issuing of the 95 Theses. They proposed that this commemoration should include some Protestant repentance for sins we have committed in our break with Rome. The same recommendation should apply, I want to insist, to the celebrations some of us will engage in of the adoption of the Canons of the Synod…
Richard J. Mouw
June 30, 2016
Essays

The Human-Flourishing Argument

In the middle of March 2015, the Elders Board of City Church San Francisco announced in a letter to its congregation (and published on its website) that the elders would no longer require their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members to commit to a life of celibacy. This was big news and the occasion of much public castigation, because, while City Church is a congregation of the Reformed Church in America, it is more widely known as San Francisco’s largest…
Daniel Meeter
June 30, 2016
Essays

Jan Hus after Six Centuries

Six hundred one years ago – July 6, 1415 – in the German city of Constance, a Roman Catholic council declared Jan Hus, the Czech church reformer, to be a heretic. He was turned over to secular authorities to be burned at the stake. Because he was accused, among other things, of being a disciple of the English reformer John Wycliffe, is was oddly fitting that when Hus was burned some of the kindling for the fire included the writings…
Ronald A. Wells
June 30, 2016