Sorting by

×
Skip to main content
Category

Uncategorized

Uncategorized

These Fragile, Gaudy Flowers

One of the best things about living in a Northern climate is rounding the curve that takes us from winter to spring, from cold to warm, from brown to green, from no flowers to a land lush with flowers. As we move from May to June, the whole land seems to be in bloom. Few flowers are more typical of the Midwest and of rural life in general than the peony. (Most of the farm gardens I have seen--my mother-in-law's…
Dave Schelhaas
June 1, 2004
Uncategorized

Educating for Shalom

Ten years ago, Richard Hughes of Pepperdine University and Theron Schlabach of Goshen College organized a small working conference with an awkward title: "Peace Thinking Among Churches other than the Historic Peace Churches."  Despite the awkwardness one can see the good point that Hughes and Schlabach were making: you don't necessarily have to be a Mennonite or a Quaker to take part in peace discourse. The conference issued in a good book in which I was glad to be a…
Ronald A. Wells
June 1, 2004
Uncategorized

Justice Rolling Down

If anyone ever deserved a little break, I thought as I drove to the Muskegon River after school that Friday afternoon in October, I was the one. In the past week, I had faced more work than I thought three skilled people, working feverishly, could ever complete. But I had managed to finish all the work up on my own. The effort, though, had left me so tense that the muscles along the back of my neck felt braided.At breakfast,…
William J. Vande Kopple
June 1, 2004
Uncategorized

Rock of Aged

For years youth ministry has been a rapidly growing focus in both Catholic and Protestant Western Christianity. Churches are creating more and more openings for youth leaders, to whom are relegated grade school through college Christian education and training. Schools (including the one at which I proudly teach) are directing more and more resources to preparing candidates for those careers. A small but growing number of evangelical churches (including one at which I proudly served) are even turning their attention…
Telford Work
June 1, 2004
Uncategorized

The Exonerated: A Docudrama

"Before acting in this play I philosophically didn't have a problem with the death penalty. What I've learned is that the problems lie in implementation." So says two-time Tony Award-winning actor Brian Dennehy during a post-show talk some fifteen minutes after receiving a standing ovation from a Minnesota audience. Dennehy refers to his experience playing Gary Gauger in Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's play, The Exonerated.  Dennehy's character is a man mistakenly convicted of murdering his parents. Touring cities across…
Robert J. Hubbard
June 1, 2004
Uncategorized

Ordinary Time

The period of "Ordinary Time" makes up the bulk of the church year, and we're in the midst of it now.  But this past spring, even when the season was Easter, I noted that biblically, even extraordinary time can be treated rather ordinarily.  I noticed that there isn't much in the Bible that tells what happened in the forty-day stretch from Easter to the ascension.  Mark says not one word about what happened over that almost six-week period.  Once Easter…
June 1, 2004
Uncategorized

Laughter in the Precincts of Grace

British literary critic James Wood is hot right now. Formerly the chief critic for the London Guardian, Wood now lives in America and is a senior editor for The New Republic. He's about to publish a new book, The Irresponsible Self: Humor and the Novel (forthcoming from Farrar Straus & Giroux). An extract from the book's introduction has been published as an essay in the book section of The Guardian (April 24). In the essay, "Laughing Matters," Wood sets forth…
David Timmer
May 16, 2004
Uncategorized

POETRY by J. Barrie Shepherd and Jim Kerbaugh

GETHSEMANE . . . and perfect man, with one last chance to say How much he'd rather not: "the hour might pass," "If it be possible" - and then who knew? Things might go on as they had always done, And who'd object? A wife, kids, decent trade, A quiet, slow approach to sepulcher - "If thou be willing." But how to wake them, With what words say he had reprieved himself, There'd be no sacrifice of blood and flesh To…
J. Barrie Shepherd
May 16, 2004
Uncategorized

Performing a Christian Icon: Tom Key’s C. S. Lewis on Stage

Witnessing an actor play C.S. Lewis on stage hardly strikes the contemporary viewer as a novel experience. For over a decade, various versions of William Nicholson's drama Shadowlands have traversed their way through different mediums, providing Lewis impersonators with unprecedented employment. Joss Ackland first played the Oxford don in the BBC teleplay (1985), followed by Nigel Hawthorn on stage in the West End and on Broadway (1989), followed by Anthony Hopkins' Oscar-nominated film portrayal (1993). Although these high-profile productions dominate…
Robert J. Hubbard
May 16, 2004