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No Merit and Due Credit

FEBRUARY 2006: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR To the Editors: Peter Bush's article in the November issue ("Stipend: A Theological Challenge to the Marketplace") puts forward an important truth: that the pay given to a pastor is a matter of grace, not works. Unfortunately, he suggests that this is only true of people who work for the church. But this truth applies to everyone. Calvinist theology traditionally argues that everything good we receive in this life comes to us by grace…
Perspectives Journal
November 3, 2014
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Tribute to Jan

JUNE/JULY 2007: AS WE SEE IT by the Editors Jan Ericson has served as the ever efficient and ever kind business manager of Perspectives since the fall of 2000. Unless you regularly peruse our credits page, you may be unfamiliar with her name. Simply put, Jan worked to ensure that this journal's mission continued on a sound footing and toward a bright future. As she now steps down after six-plus years in her post, it's fitting that we recognize her…
Perspectives Journal
November 3, 2014
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POETRY by Shari Wagner

DECEMBER 2008: POETRY by Shari Wagner The Prayers of Saint Meinrad Saint Meinrad Archabbey, Spencer County, IN For more than a century, prayers like flakes of snow have been falling. They drift across the hillside and melt on each station of the cross. They cover the graves where monks rest beneath Gregorian chants, touch the Romanesque spires of the abbey, soak into sandstone walls. Vespers sweep through a corridor, past photographs of young priests, to accumulate near St. Benedict with…
Shari Wagner
October 31, 2014
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POETRY by Jeff Grundy

NOVEMBER 2008: POETRY by Jeff Grundy Table The pen in my hand writes red, not quite blood. If I have a soul, it might be like this, thin, wet, smelling of copper and iron. Down on Riley Street, the Baptist workers have drained, cleaned, and sanitized every flooded basement. They accepted no money and didn't preach to anyone, knowing that every touch leaves a trace anyway. If every slide along the banisters of lust and gravity is both transient and…
Jeff Gundy
October 31, 2014
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Alien Justice

APRIL 2012: AS WE SEE IT by Jack R. Van Der Slik What may be loosely called American immigration policy confounds a number of distressing issues. It is difficult to judge the justice or injustice of the policy because it is an inconsistent patchwork of requirements. Even where substantive aspects of the policy are clear, its enforcement is inconsistent in ways that seem inequitable. Fair-minded citizens become dubious of governmental legitimacy when the consequences of enforcement produce irregularities of both…
Jack R. Van Der Slik
October 30, 2014
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Let’s Have (a) Sex (Talk)

MARCH 2012: REVIEW by Theresa Latini Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America's College Campuses Donna Freitas Oxford University Press, 2008 (paperback 2010) $16.95 335 pages. Editors' note: This month's review is the second in a set focusing on recent books we believe are essential reading for those who work with young people. In a forthcoming issue, we will also be reviewing Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood by Christian Smith et…
October 30, 2014
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On the Brink of Niagara

MARCH 2012: POETRY by D. S. Martin You & I have stood on the brink of Niagara many times & so we know  like Coleridge  a waterfall can be sublime not merely pretty & of all the waterfalls on earth some are more majestic  more picturesque & grand  more worth the praise  more deserving of the description  We've worn raincoats within reach of the descending water's spray  & on the boat Maid of the Mist  & kissed  as if to…
D.S. Martin
October 30, 2014
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A Church for the City: Present Realities and Future Challenges

MARCH 2012: ESSAY by Chuck DeGroat and Rachael Butler How do you view the city? Terms of derision abound: Crime-ridden. Busy. Scary. Drug-infested. Liberal. Over-crowded. Hopeless. And the caricatures are as old as scripture. It was Cain, the first citybuilder, who killed Abel, the brother who tended the flocks. And there was David, the great warrior in the wilderness who became a great sinner when he moved to the city. And, of course, Jesus was born in a stable, but…
Chuck DeGroat and Rachael Butler
October 30, 2014
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More Me to Me, More God to God

MARCH 2012: AS WE SEE IT by Bart Garrett Imagine this scene. You are sitting at a coffee shop enjoying your favorite fairtrade, shade-grown, single-origin-bean, vacuum-pressed cup of caffeine when you glance out the window only to see a man walking by wearing nothing but a pink tutu. In your next glance, you see another man walking by carrying a Bible. The guy sitting beside you sees both passersby and then turns toward you and asks, "Was he carrying a…
Bart Garrett
October 30, 2014