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Reckoning with the Formation of the Bible

The Lost World of Scripture BOOK REVIEW THE LOST WORLD OF SCRIPTURE: ANCIENT LITERARY CULTURE AND BIBLICAL AUTHORITY JOHN H. WALTON AND D. BRENT SANDY IVP ACADEMIC, 2013 320 PP. $15.98 John H. Walton and D. Brent Sandy, Bible professors at Wheaton College, describe a scene that is undoubtedly common in biblical-studies classrooms on Christian campuses across the country: A student lingers after class to ask “the question” in hushed tones, fi rst looking around to make sure everyone else…
January 10, 2015
Poetry

Alberta Avenue, Just before 8 PM

It is almost 8 now the crowds have gone and the festival tents are packed away inside their Rubbermaid totes for another year of hibernation I am standing in the middle of the street which is a crazy thing to do in a busy city on 118th Avenue, or any avenue but not now, on Sunday, before 8 The roads are still closed The neighbourhood defended from marauding cars and trucks by a mote of pylons and barricades until 8…
January 10, 2015
Inside Out

The Great Assurance

I came to know Christ through a parachurch ministry when I was a freshman in high school. To help me grow as a disciple, I was handed a copy of Charles Sheldon’s 1896 classic “In His Steps.” This also was right around the time the What Would Jesus Do? movement erupted, and I wore my WWJD bracelet proudly. My friends and I were determined to try to be like Jesus in everything we did. While I am grateful for those…
Brian Keepers
October 30, 2014
Reviews

Seeking Foundations of a New Consensus

THE TWILIGHT OF THE AMERICAN ENLIGHTEN-MENT: THE 1950S AND THE CRISIS OF LIBERAL BELIEF GEORGE MARSDEN BASIC BOOKS, 2014 $26.99. 264 PAGES. A specter haunts George Marsden: the specter of modern liberalism. What did it promise? How did it fail? What comes next? To explore these questions, Marsden’s essay on American public intellectual culture since the 1950s follows some famous middlebrow and scholarly writers—creators of America’s modern “liberal consensus”—into the 1960s. This era, Marsden argues, was the eve of the…
Michael Kugler
October 30, 2014
Reviews

Bytes and Belief

SHAPING A DIGITAL WORLD: FAITH, CULTURE AND COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY DEREK C. SCHUURMAN IVP ACADEMIC, 2013. $18.00. 138 PAGES. Derek Schuurman asks a question very similar to one asked by many of my computer science students: “What does my faith have to do with my work as an electrical engineer?” Of course, this question is relevant not only for Christians involved in working directly with computer technology but for people in all stations of life. Along with me, many students wrestle with the…
Mark Vellinga
October 30, 2014
Essays

Home, Heroes and Saints in Christ

I have been told that I have a tendency to ruin cultural outings with my penchant for theological critique. I try really hard to rein it in, but sometimes I just can’t help myself. It might have happened last month, when I took my 4-year-old son to see “The Wizard of Oz.” It was an Andrew Lloyd Webber production, with many of the classic songs from the 1939 movie and a few new songs written for this play. One of…
Kristen Deede Johnson
October 30, 2014
Poetry

Psalm 727

For the Director, to the tune of “The Cup of Mourning.” Dawn, in her tattered veils, wafts one last breath over the pond like a bridal train; the ivory mesh snags, opening on a rain-pearled leaf, a peeling scroll of birch inked with cryptic lines— alas, no message there for a widow. French press steeps as layers of gauze keep parting, God’s hand there, stirring a glimpse within morning’s swirl of cream marbled through coffee, easing this ache we call…
Laurie Klein
October 30, 2014
Essays

Lying, Truthfulness and the Grace of God

It is an old question, and it happens every fall. Every fall, I teach a required course on biblical theology as seen through the Old Testament and the Gospels. Every fall, we get stuck on the story of Rahab in the book of Joshua, and we get particularly stuck on the question of whether Rahab was justified in lying to Jericho about the whereabouts of Israel’s spies. Every fall, almost all of my students — whether they are products of…
Keith Starkenburg
October 30, 2014
Essays

How to Practice the Virtue of Hope: The ‘Shawshank’ Connection

The apostle Paul ends 1 Corinthians 13 with the words “And so these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” In the Christian tradition from Augustine to Aquinas and beyond, “these three” become the three theological virtues. For love, we get a list of how-to’s in the same chapter: love is not rude; it rejoices with the truth. In Hebrews 11, we get a list of heroes of faith. But what to say about…
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung
October 30, 2014