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Take a Poet to Lunch

"How do you find all that time to read?" a friend asks. "It's my job," I respond. "As a minister, I am a servant of the Word. Words are my tools. I need to keep my toolkit well stocked." This calls not only for serious ongoing study of the scriptures, but an immersion in that grand stream of poetry and prose that has issued from pens and presses for thousands of years. Each word is precious. Each word is dangerous.…
Norman Kolenbrander
August 1, 2010
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Language, Justice, and the Christian Liberal Arts: Why School Isn’t Always Fair

Over the past decade, Northwestern College in Orange City Iowa has become increasingly engaged with social justice. Many of our students, faculty, and staff choose to spend their breaks on Spring Service, Summer of Service, and disaster relief projects. Our administration has supported these efforts--we currently have eight professionals dedicated to coordinating ministry, mission, and service learning programs, resulting in partnerships with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and the Urban Ventures Leadership Foundation. All of this is in addition…
Tom Truesdell
August 1, 2010
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What Language Shall I Borrow?

Whether your bent is toward biblical, historical, systematic, or narrative theologies, it is fair to say that each contributes something valuable to the greater good of the theological enterprise. Within this greater conversation, at least from my view, liturgical theology is the most underappreciated. I was taught early on in my studies that doxology should be closely related to theology, that worship and study of God work best together. If our thoughts about God are not intertwined with our worship…
Joshua Banner
June 1, 2010
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The Fragrance of Faith

The more you read this story, the more it seems to glow, almost dizzying us with sensory overload, not unlike the fragrance of Mary's poured perfume. This stopover in Bethany becomes a point of rest not only for Jesus on his danger-fraught journey to Jerusalem, but also a place for us to pause, ponder, and wonder. In many ways this is a most familiar story, since some version of it appears in each gospel. Yet this one is different, lit…
Carol Cook
June 1, 2010
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Making the Pitch

This last year I started working with my son in his construction business. It is a small business, and Daniel is also the most important salesman for the company. He has taught me a thing or two about selling. He is very good at what he does. One of his favorite movies is Tin Men, a comedy about two not-so-good aluminum siding salesmen who are eventually hauled before their state Sales Commission for corrupt sales practices. Daniel knows what is…
Terrence Kenney
June 1, 2010
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New City Fellowship Chattanooga, Tennessee

I hadn't realized I was a few minutes late for the 8:30am service (the first of two ), but it became evident to me immediately upon exiting my car that worship had already begun. I could feel it reverberating in my chest and beneath my feet in the parking lot well before I could clearly hear or see it. While most of the surrounding neighborhood of inner city Chattanooga was still sleeping on this mild spring morning, it was evident…
Jay D. Green
June 1, 2010
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Numbers

The Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible, of which David L. Stubbs's commentary on Numbers is a part, departs substantially from typical commentary series, such as the Yale Anchor Bible or the Old Testament Library (Westminster/John Knox). The Brazos Commentary has as its guiding conviction, or one of them, according to the series editor, R. R. Reno, that "dogma clarifies rather than obscures." Thus, "the Nicene tradition, in all its diversity and controversy, provides the proper basis for the interpretation…
Ben C. Ollenburger
June 1, 2010
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Reformed and Always Raining: Confessions of a Calvinist in the Northwest

Having discovered the Christian faith at a summer camp north of Seattle and having recently returned to the area to accept a call to a local church, I am sometimes confused by the notoriety of the Northwest within Christian circles. It's not unusual to get the kind of sympathetic expressions one normally expects when a beloved pet dies, as colleagues ask what it's like to be a pastor in the region with among the most days of rain per annum…
Eric O. Jacobsen
June 1, 2010
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The Sobriety of Hope

What is it about Reinhold Niebuhr that makes him a thinker of "promise" for President Obama? The president's appreciation of Niebuhr may go back to his earlier days as a community organizer on Chicago's south side. Saul Alinsky, the inspiration and interpreter of the community organization movement, regarded Niebuhr as one of his mentors and may have led the president to Niebuhr's works.1 My speculations on an Obama-Niebuhr connection are based not only on learning from Alinsky's Reveille for Radicals…
Gabriel Fackre
June 1, 2010