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Porn

Pornography: "porn"--literally meaning prostitute, implying distorted or exploitive; "graphy"--writing, pictures. For a long time, pornography seemed more of a tawdry embarrassment, an ugly rash on the underbelly of society. With the rise of the internet, two lethal ingredients were added: easy access and privacy. Pornography has exploded. Pornography is a symptom of a larger illness. Not just a general coarsening of morality or a desensitization of sexuality, where we are bombarded by sexual images and innuendo everywhere, all the time,…
April 1, 2009
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Signs of the Times?

"Sodomy Is a Crime Against God and Nature." So declares a church sign that my wife drives past each morning on her way to work. Now I know what you're thinking: criticizing church signs is hackneyed and is any way a little like the proverbial "shooting fish in a barrel." To some these signs are just the height of religious silliness, hardly worthy of serious concern, much less serious commentary. Even given the fact that few people expect much from…
March 1, 2009
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Truth, Reconciliation, and Human Rights: A Reflection on South Africa’s Transition to Multiracial Democracy

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in the Republic of South Africa, created in 1995 just a year after the first multiracial elections, attracted attention around the world as an example of visionary and courageous political action in a time of great political and social upheaval. The world had seen nothing like it, and it suggested radical new possibilities for large-scale political change following the replacement of authoritarian rule by democratic rule (or, more accurately in this instance, replacement of…
David A. Hoekema
March 1, 2009
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Engaging Eleanor Rigby: A Christian Alternative to Lonely Listening

From boycotts to baptized alternatives to filching the best bar songs for hymnody, Christians have had various relationships with popular music. Should we shut out all forms of art, popular or otherwise, that don't originate with committed Christian artists? Or does the call to Christian witness demand that we engage popular artists where they stand and on their own terms? According to Paul's admonition in 1 Corinithians 10:23, we have the freedom to listen to any music, but how do…
Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma
March 1, 2009
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Grounding Justice

The first thing you need to know about this book is that the title does not do it justice. Nicholas Wolterstorff, professor emeritus of philosophical theology at Yale, has not sought to tell us what justice requires, like John Rawls in A Theory of Justice, but to answer a deeper question: what cosmic support, if any, grounds justice? His answer is in the first instance the excellence and majesty of God, which give Him inherent dignity and worthiness of respect…
A. Chadwick Ray
March 1, 2009
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Fiction and Faith in Ten Contemporary Writers

Readers of fiction inside and outside the church have been wary of the role that faith plays in the novels and stories they read; the first because they prefer affirmation and dislike negative portrayals, and the second because they think that a writer's faith-commitment is deleterious to fiction. In this collection of interviews with ten American novelists, (Eleanor Taylor Bland, David James Duncan, Terence Faherty, Ernest Gaines, Philip Gulley, Ron Hansen, Silas House, Jan Karon, Sheri Reynolds, and Lee Smith),…
Francis Fike
March 1, 2009
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A Simple Peek

There are certain times in life when Scripture, a sermon, and life all join together to bring some clarity to life. The joining of those three feels like swirling together milk and sugar into a freshly brewed cup of coffee or hitting the sweet spot on the soccer ball as you kick it, putting it into the upper corner of the goal out of reach of the keeper. This in no way diminishes the power of Scripture to speak into…
Gretchen Schoon Tanis
March 1, 2009
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Seeing the Ruin of Gaza from the Ruins of Umm el-Jimal

On January 15 my wife and I sat in the guest room sipping tea with Abdullah Serour, the current sheikh of the Umm el-Jimal village in northeastern Jordan. I have been working in the area for over thirty years, among other things documenting how archaeological materials have been reused over time. As Abdullah described how he used to go to school in a refurbished Byzantine house surrounded by ruins, the television on the wall displayed live coverage of the bombing…
Bert de Vries
February 1, 2009
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A Discussion of the Atonement: Abuse, Violence, Sacrifice, and the Cross

Three Reformed theologians--Gabriel Fackre, George Hunsinger, and Leanne Van Dyk--recently joined together to discuss, via a telephone conference call, Christ's atoning work and some of the current criticisms and challenges to traditional understandings of it. Perspectives editor Steve Mathonnet-Vander Well posed the questions. The responses of the three theologians are indicated by their initials.Just by way of introduction, what particularly interests you or seems important for a discussion of the atonement? Gabriel Fackre (GF): How come there's no ecumenical consensus…
Leanne Van Dyk, Gabriel Fackre and George Hunsinger
February 1, 2009