Category: Theology and Practice
When the Grass is Greener
When we returned to West Point this past July, we did not expect to end up restricted to the same five-mile radius for the rest of the semester. Yet the potent combination of COVID-19 and military force protection measures resulted...
Advent I: The Face of God
The deepest desire of the people of God is to see the face of God. The Psalmist gives voice to this desire in the form of exhortation: “seek his face always” (105:4). The invocation of Israel’s priests answers this desire...
Book Review: The End of the Christian Life by J. Todd Billings
We live in a death-denying and death-defying culture. We know, on an intellectual level, that one day we will die, yet we tend to avoid contemplating this inescapable truth more than is strictly necessary. For modern people, death is an...
An Unbelieving Church
Author and psychiatrist, Curt Thompson, once remarked “we become what we pay attention to.” Reformulated as a question, it becomes arguably the guiding question we need today, namely who are you becoming? In a time of political crisis and social...
On Unlearning
Come now, O Lord my God. Teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find you. Lord, if you are not here, where shall I seek you, since you are absent? But if you are...
The Logic of the Body
Making ourselves vulnerable is dangerous. It’s dangerous because many of us have theological lenses that prohibit us from seeing those who are emotionally overwhelmed as deserving compassion. Too often we see their anxiety, depression, or anger as guilty until proven...
Reading Emily Dickinson with Job
A few months ago, a Mynah hatchling fell out of its nest in one of our carport rafters. When we found it, it was lying awkwardly on the ground, clearly hurt beyond our capacity to heal. Nonetheless, my kids insisted...
All Monuments Must Fall
The Lincoln Memorial will not be in the New Jerusalem. Our civilization’s monuments, the testimonial pillars of our cultural identity, have been subjected to an increasingly strident moral audit. It has been observed to the point of banality that this...
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...
What the Courtship Movement and the Jedi Both Get Wrong
We are going to play a game. The game is called “Joshua Harris or Jedi Path?” and if you bring it out at parties, you will not be invited back.