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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
Essays

The Heart of the Matter: Augustine of Hippo on the Will

In 1974, two scholars were scheduled to deliver prestigious lectures on opposite sides of the Atlantic. The political theorist Hannah Arendt, an American citizen, traveled to Scotland to give the Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen. Meanwhile, the classical philologist Albrecht Dihle journeyed from Germany to the U.S. to give the Sather Lectures at California State University, Berkley. More striking even than the crossing of their paths across the ocean was a convergence in the content of their talks.…
February 29, 2016
Poetry

John 8: 1-11

Like a mat they beat her out, dragged her sorry ass to the court and called for Jesus. Jesus, Jesus. He washed his hands, slipped his feet into his sandals and went out. He watched her, folded, the red dirt combing the sides of her head, blood running into the streets. Angry men clanging, He knelt beside her, his finger dragging in the soil. Her eyes opened – Then, she saw the marble throne of God, the choir of angels…
February 29, 2016
Reviews

Calling Men to Be Fully Human

MAN ENOUGH: HOW JESUS REDEFINES MANHOOD NATE PYLE ZONDERVAN, 2015 $15.99 208 PAGES I cried as I read the last chapter of a book written about Christian manhood. Yes, you read that correctly. But, before I talk about the end, let me back up a bit. As a woman called into ordained ministry but having to struggle against ideas I had learned during my formative years about the place of women in church and home, I have had to unpack the…
February 29, 2016
As We See It

A Theological Community Speaks

We hear a lot these days about the impending demise of print media. Isn’t it remarkable that in such a difficult market, Perspectives keeps chugging along? There are two secrets to our success: On the expense side, the writing and production of the magazine are labors of love. Our writers don’t get paid, and our co-editors, review editors, poetry editors, board of editors and contributing editors all are volunteers. We pay a proofreader, and we do pay our managing editor…
February 29, 2016
Essays

Christianity and Whiteness

“And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.” – John 17:11, ESV The relationship between Christianity and people of color in the United States has been characterized by injustice. In his classic Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass described the Christianity of his…
February 29, 2016