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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
September 5, 2014
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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
September 5, 2014
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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
September 5, 2014
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Bytes and Belief

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 integration of faith and learning, especially when it comes to a discipline such as computer science.…
Mark Vellinga
September 5, 2014
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Homo Liturgicus

Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation James K.A. Smith Baker Academic, 2009. $22.99. 240 pages. Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works James K.A. Smith Baker Academic, 2009. $22.99. 224 pages. James K.A. Smith's Cultural Liturgies project aims at no less than the renewal of Christian practice in worship and in education. Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College, contends that we are in thrall to a distorting philosophical anthropology that enervates Christian practice because it overvalues the role…
Don Wacome
May 1, 2014
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A Love Letter to the Psalms

The Case for the Psalms: Why They are Essential N.T. Wright Harper One, 2013. $22.99. 208 pages. A reader of this brief volume can see this is a Christian's love letter to the Psalms. Wright explains, "Trying to pick out individual psalms and their particular impact is like trying to remember particular breakfasts that I have eaten. Cereal and toast, bacon and eggs, pancakes and syrup, coff ee and juice—whichever it is, it's important, and if I have to skip…
Beth LaNeel Tanner
May 1, 2014
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Beyond Polarization to a Deeper Ethic

Nick Overduin The day I sat down to write this review, there was a photograph in my local newspaper (The Toronto Star) showing a happy gay couple in Paris, the first two men to be married there under official French law. France had just become the fourteenth country to approve same-sex marriage. Two weeks later, there was an article about the tenth anniversary of gay marriage in Canada. And today, three weeks later, an article about the Russian parliament surprisingly…
Nick Overduin
November 1, 2013
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Invitational Apologetics

David E. Timmer The cover of Dan Meeter's e-book features a set of austerely elegant sacramental vessels rudely interrupted by a screaming red fire extinguisher. The visual incongruity effectively signals to the reader what will and won't be found inside: Meeter seeks to offer an invitational apologetic for Christian faith, one which does not depend on threats of hellfire, condemnations of other religions, or "evidence that demands a verdict." And he contends that this generous, non-defensive and non-coercive presentation of…
David E. Timmer
November 1, 2013
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A Rake[r]’s Regress

William Graddy Yesterday marked the second of what is usually a three-day annual battle at 5259 Wright Terrace between the living and the dead: my body and leaf-fall. Poets both skeptical and believing have written hauntingly about the beauty autumn leaves bring and the barrenness their absence leaves behind ("Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang"; "Márgarét, áre you gríeving / Over Goldengrove unleaving?"), but, rake in hand and ankle deep in summer's remains, I just pant, sweat,…
William Graddy
November 1, 2013