Category: Theology and Practice
Tethered Still
I am a mother and a theologian. These two facts belong together, inextricable as they are for me and my experience of them. I was pregnant with my first child as I began my doctoral work; I carried her to...
Can Hope Be Saved?
In the previous two essays of this triptych, I have attempted to sketch how the Gospel of Jesus Christ might shape our understanding of justice in order to clarify what our responsibilities as Christians might be in our own time....
A Theology of Faces: Notes on the Costs of Masking
I have heard it said time and time again: “Wearing a face covering is a small sacrifice to love your neighbor.” All this in the context of discussing face masks ever since the CDC and, some experts, decided that it...
Can Charity Save Justice?
It was an ordinary Sunday afternoon in the Anderson household a few years back, full of books and tea and other comforts. My wife had momentarily interrupted my reading by giving me a kiss, seemingly without cause. It captured just...
Memes and Icons: Reflections on the Spiritual Meaning of Two Species of Imagery
(Print-friendly PDF) 1. Simply to function in the world, we need to assume that the future will resemble the past to some degree. Taken too far, though, this assumption blinds us to the new. With respect to internet media, I...
Book Review: The Ascension of Christ by Patrick Schreiner
It is de rigeur to begin any work on the ascension with the contemporary church’s neglect of the doctrine. Despite numerous books published on the ascension in the past generation and the prominence of the doctrine in the creeds this...
Straightening Out the Bible?: The Translator’s Text and Audience
Should a god who is neither male nor female be referred to by a masculine pronoun? Translator Jost Zetzsche raises this question in his essay, Is God Male? The Divine Chinese Pronoun. This problem, inevitable in English, was solved in...
Daf Yomi in Quarantine
Throughout centuries of exile, the Talmud has been an oasis of calm for the Jewish people. Heinrich Heine famously called it “the portable homeland of the Jewish people.” The study of Talmud, even in the centuries-long suspension of national sovereignty,...
The Church of Individualism
Mark Sayers defines secularism as the pursuit of “the fruits of the Kingdom without the King.” It’s a beautifully succinct summary of a culture with a historical amnesia of it’s once-upon-a-time countercultural Christian foundations built to support the social virtues...
To Open or Not to Open? A Humble Plea
“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in...