Title: Refuge Reimagined: Biblical Kinship in Global Politics Author: Mark R. Glanville, Luke Glanville Publisher: IVP Academic Publishing Date: February 16, 2021 Pages: 272 (Paperback) ISBN: 978-0830853816 How far should the U.S. open its borders to the refugees streaming north from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras? Was Germany’s acceptance of more than one million refugees in 2015 warranted? What about the 700,000 …
I caught a little wasp recently while on vacation. It was on the beach of a Minnesota lake, right up on the fringe where the adjacent grass invades the sand. It hopped and clambered about rather than flying around like a “normal” wasp, and it was very small—only four millimeters long. As an entomologist, I find insects that pique my interest in many places. There were numerous individuals of this wasp species along that stretch of sand, but we beachgoers had not noticed them before this. I …
Title: Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer Author: David G. Benner Publisher: IVP Books Publishing Date: September 3, 2010 Pages: 180 (Paperback) ISBN: 978-0830835508 How should Christians pray? That question is answered when Jesus gave his disciples the Lord’s prayer, an excellent example of how to pray. Christians model prayers after the Lord’s Prayer, including praise, thanks, …
Title: Klara and the Sun: A novel Author: Kazuo Ishiguro Publisher: Knopf Publishing Date: March 2, 2021 Pages: 320 (Hardcover) ISBN: 978-0593318171 What sets Kazuo Ishiguro’s literature apart from many other novelists—apart from the Nobel Prize that Ishiguro won in 2017—is the deep undercurrent of love and separation which moves through the narratives, in a way which refuses to …
Title: Becoming All Things: How Small Changes Lead To Lasting Connections Across Cultures Author: Michelle Reyes1 Publisher: Zondervan Publishing Date: April 27, 2021 Pages: 208 (Hardcover) ASIN: 0310108918 Most folks who have been around an evangelical church for any amount of time have heard a few verses often quoted: Jeremiah 29:11 (“…for I know the plans…”), John 3:16 (“…for …
Title: Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac Author: Steven D. Smith Publisher: Eerdmans Publishing Date: November 15, 2018 Pages: 408 (Hardcover) ISBN: 978-0802876317 We live in rapidly changing and confusing times. Key ideas, concepts, and beliefs of what it means to be human and how we interact with each other in society that would not have …
This school year was hard. Although hardships and adjustments in the past couple years differ greatly depending on one’s community, educational needs continue to arise within both our public and Christian school settings, exacerbated recently by the global pandemic. As this article specifically addresses the common needs of teachers and how principals can support those in education, notice how these needs might extend to our many roles as parents, professionals, caretakers, …
Title: Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers Author: Dane Ortlund Publisher: Crossway Publishing Date: April 7, 2020 Pages: 224 (Hardcover) ISBN: 978-1433566134 When our consciences are truly pricked, we are repulsed by our sins. When we are in anguish, we often feel disconnected from others, including our God, and we naturally join the Psalmist, …
“Tov” is the Hebrew word for good. In ‘A Church Called Tov: Forming A Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing’, authors Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer seek to lay out a vision for goodness culture within church congregations and in church leadership.
Last week, I attended the funeral of one of my wife’s sponsors. “Sponsor” is an entirely inappropriate identifier in this case.
Here in the center of 2021, we are emerging from—and continuing into—one of the most turbulent periods in American history.
Father’s Day is a time to remember and acknowledge dads and other men who have been mentors and guides during our formative years.
“Is Christ divided?” (1 Cor 1:13). Paul’s question is rhetorical, and we’re meant to say, “No, of course not!” But like the fractious Corinthians, we seem to have a pile of evidence to the contrary on our hands.
Sometimes a joke can capture a cultural sentiment as well as any other social commentary, so I’ll begin my review of Robert Talisse’s “Overdoing Democracy” with one that demonstrates his thesis: How do you know if an unmasked adult is vaccinated or not? Just ask who they think won the last presidential election.
As broken followers of Jesus, called to live out his holy prayer, we can seek the wisdom and courage we need to pursue unity and reconciliation while standing for truth and righteousness at the same time.
What are Christians to make of religious liberty? The free exercise of religion is one of the hallmarks of the American Constitution, enshrined alongside speech, assembly, petitioning the government, and freedom of the press, as a way of creating space for religion within American life—however checkered that history of equal protection might be.
“As I asked those who were in pastoral ministry, ‘what’s your biggest challenge?’ a lot of them said ‘dealing with death.'” -J.Todd Billings
One of the most commonly quoted biblical chapters about language is James 3, where the apostle exhorts fellow believers to watch out for the power of the tongue, which is “…a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts…no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”
St. Paul writes mostly in prose, but once in a while…he gets so excited that he can’t restrain his inner poet and he launches into a poetic riff that knocks us off our feet.
On May 3rd, President Biden announced that he would raise the limit on refugees from 15,000 to 62,500. It was a rare moment of celebration for people across the political aisle.
Despite our Judeo-Christian roots, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to be a serious follower of Jesus in the West today.
Our podcast episode 6 featuring Chandra Crane is live on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Audible. On this episode of the podcast, we talk with Chandra Crane, a writer and leader in multiethnic ministry initiatives, about her new book Mixed Blessing (InterVarsity Press, 2020). Our theme question: what does it mean to see, steward, and celebrate multi-ethnicity? Among the …
It’s an interesting time in history to be reading Beth Allison Barr’s “The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth.”
Early in my teaching career, a mentor told me that he thought being a professor was much harder now than when he started, because he now spent several hours “doing email” each day.
Many of us remember the 90s and what has become known as “purity culture.” It was a time of promoting abstinence, purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls.