The Cost of Nurture
Christians and even some non-Christian philosophers regularly strive to ‘remember death,’ but few of us seem willing to remember our birth. Only a few paragraphs into Augustine’s Confessions, he recalls the grace of God given to him by his own...
‘Passages,’ Chapter 1
(originally published on “Passages”) Who wrote the Nicene Creed? Why did the estimated 300 bishops present at the Council of Nicaea use terms such as “Light of Light… consubstantial… proceeding…” and more to describe God? Is the creed even intelligible...
Announcing “Passages”: A New Podcast from Mere Orthodoxy
(originally published on the Passages podcast home page) “O gladsome light, pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven, O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed! Now as we come to the setting of the sun, and our eyes behold the...
Dementia and the God Who Remembers
Privation If evil is a privation of the good, as held by many in the history of Christian theology, that does not imply it is passive. An all too active force, evil might be akin to an insatiable blackhole, sweeping...
Book Review: Remembrance, Communion, and Hope by J. Todd Billings
J. Todd Billings. Remembrance, Communion, and Hope: Rediscovering the Gospel at the Lord’s Table. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018. 217 pp. $20, hardcover. Like the ghost of a dear friend dead Is Time long past. A tone which is now...
The Dust Bowl, Remembered
In clean, cool air the morning after a thunderstorm, while blazing pink and golden light spills over the horizon before becoming a deep cerulean crown over a sweltering summer afternoon, it is difficult to imagine the conditions in Texas only...
The Virus and the Earth
Drawing attention during a global pandemic to the plight of air and water quality, endangered species, rising sea levels, and ecological sustainability might appear ill-timed at best, or grossly tone deaf at worst. While doctors and nurses labor under extreme...
Deaths of Despair and Lives of Hope in a Cynical Age
Upon falling into the hands of Giant Despair, Christian and his friend Hopeful were imprisoned without any provisions for days on end and while enduring beatings. In John Bunyan’s 17th-century allegory Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian eventually laments, “Brother, what shall we...
Book Review: The Decadent Society by Ross Douthat
Although the word “apocalypse” in contemporary popular imagination connotes “the end of the world,” the word in biblical and theological literature means an “unveiling” or a “revelation.” In apocalyptic literature, the truth about reality is not always what it seems....
A Hidden Life as Temptation Narrative
How do we live when nobody is looking, or when the collateral damage of pursuing good might outweigh complicity in evil? Terrence Malick’s film A Hidden Life is based upon the true story of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian peasant who...