September 2014
August 2014
Screwtape on Prefrosh
Unseat the desire for truth in your patient and replace it with a desire for academic respect, and your job is half done.
Judith Huang | The Harvard Ichthus | Summer 2011 - Special issue for the incoming class of 2015
The Visible and Invisible Church
The invisible church is a term for all believers in Jesus Christ. ... A visible church is a human organization that supports Christians in their varied expressions of belief, trust, in Christ.
Steven Lee | St. Olaf Avodah | Spring 2014July 2014
April 2014
The Pain of Privilege
Because of this privilege, there are generally two ways Christians at Berkeley come to grips with this reality: the path characterized by guilt and the path characterized by obligation.
David Park | UC Berkeley TAUG | Fall 2013
The Blood of the Martyrs
Perpetua’s account [of martyrdom] is especially remarkable, because it is one of the few authentic voices of women from the Roman Empire.
Margaret Eichner | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2013March 2014
Reading Marilynne Robinson: Liberation through Tradition
Is it bizarre that a contemporary creative writer would inspire a college student to start reading John Calvin? Absolutely. That’s the magnificence of Marilynne Robinson.
Danielle Charette | Swarthmore Peripateo | Fall 2013
String Theory, the Multiverse, and God
It might seem that God and string theory, like Harry and Voldemort, cannot live while the other survives.
Tom Rudelius | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2013January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
Why Friendship?
It forged a deeper commitment to one another; the sacrament of baptism created a bond of love reminding me that, whatever I might feel as a single person, I did belong to one family at least.
Wesley Hill | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2012
Jesus: Temple Revolutionary
The gospels’ Jesus was not a mystic or martyr in isolation from his time or culture as some have suggested, but rather a Temple revolutionary, whose Temple-centric characterization is consistent with the worldviews of 1st century Israel.
Timothy Toh | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2012
What is a “Christian” Social Ethics?
The communal nature of Jesus’ life and work must be considered when attempting to define the Christian character of a social ethic.
Daniel Bell | The Yale Logos | Winter 2012
Yahweh: God Unbounded
While we must remember Schrödinger’s lesson—God’s true essence is never changed by our classifications—we must also be wary of how our misconceptions of God may restrict how we experience him in our lives.
Amira Athanasios | The Claremont Ekklesia | Fall 2013
Symbols of God
But how are symbols to be used when the divine—whether as God the Father, the divine aspect of Christ, or the Holy Spirit—is as St. John of Damascus puts it: “uncircumscribed and unable to be represented?”
Rachel Himes | The Brown & RISD Cornerstone | Spring 2013October 2013
Why Jesus?
J.R.R. Tolkien has undoubtedly captivated the heart of many in his Middle Earth saga, The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s ability to resonate with his audience lies in his tale’s appeal to human nature itself.
Mako Nagasawa | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2012
A Response to Ronald Sider’s Just Politics
Sider attempts to develop a biblical political philosophy. This is best done, Sider argues, not by proof texting from the Bible on every political issue but instead by developing a biblical view of both persons and the world as a whole and applying this view to politics.
Hayden Kvamme | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2013
On Money
We accept Paul’s claim that the love of money is the root of all evil, but we know that that verse does not entail us to shun money itself as an evil. Money, at the end of the day, is also part of His Creation, and all things were created for His glory.
Richard Lee and April Koh | The Yale Logos | Winter 2012September 2013
August 2013
Eternity in the Moment
To respond to Nietzsche’s criticism, and indeed to contemporary understandings of time and meaning, the Christian needs to point out a model for a life that partakes in its own positive affirmation, but in the right way.
David Nolan | The Williams Telos | Spring 2013
Why Wait? An Analysis of Christian Ethical Perspectives on Premarital Sex
The traditional Christian injunction against premarital sex, writes C. S. Lewis, “is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it is now, has gone wrong."
Teng-Kuan Ng | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2012
A Lament for Skepticism
It seems to be a common assumption that religious believers are somehow irrational for holding the beliefs that they do. The claim, simply put, is that there just isn’t enough (or any) convincing evidence for the truth of many Christian beliefs, such as the belief in God, especially in light of the discoveries of modern science.
Enoch Kuo | Princeton Revisions | Summer 2013July 2013
On Mystical Obedience
You’re telling me that God’s commands are not burdensome while I’m struggling to go even half of a day without breaking one? How can you say that his commands are not burdensome when our desires and our wills conflict with his commands?
Andrew Kim | The Brown & RISD Cornerstone | Spring 2013 Volume II Issue II
Grasping for Grace: The Strangeness and Difficulty of Faith in T.S. Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday”
Instants of intellectual ecstasy are close to what the Romantics meant when they contemplated the Sublime, which Edmund Burke classified as the “strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.”
Danielle Charette | Swarthmore Peripateo | Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2013
Cynicism, the Gospel, and the Orange Bubble
Everyone has to be in some kind of bubble somewhere. The question that follows is where and how we decide to draw its parameters.
Alice Su | Princeton Revisions |
Things Worthy to Be Loved
What motivates us anyway? Why ought we to take ownership of our education and explore these “things worthy to be loved”?
Sang Lee | Princeton Revisions |June 2013
The Stranger: Christianity and the Immigrant Story
“I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” This quote comes from the Gospels, which are based in the ministry of Jesus. When we stop and look at the story of Jesus, we see an understanding of what it means to be a stranger.
by Yared Portillo, with help from Helen Plotkin | Swarthmore Peripateo | Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2013
Eternity
I am afraid of death. I don’t mean in the buried-six-feet-under sense. Rather, I am afraid of dying by way of the American dream: to wake up some day in a life so comfortable that I have forgotten my dreams.
Shirley Li | The Williams Telos | Issue 9, Spring 2013
Christianity and Feminism: A Look into the Work of Mary Astell
The foundation of Mary Astell's argument was the concept that it was men, not God, nor women themselves, who made women inferior. In a world that was constantly arguing for the natural inferiority of women, this was a radical idea.
Steffi Ostrowski | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2013, Volume 7, Issue 2
The Creamer Medieval Gallery
In her book Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums, Carol Duncan equates ritual — here defined as sets of practices which induce a transcendent experience — with the experience of viewing art in a museum.
Rachel Himes | The Brown & RISD Cornerstone | Spring 2013, Vol II, Issue IIMay 2013
Why Obey?
Acting in accordance with one’s desires is more a fact than a flaw of human beings. Any moral system that actually gets people to follow it must (not ought, must) not run counter to the personal desires of human beings.
Aaron Gyde | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2012, Volume 8, Number 3
Love Thy Enemy
Are Christians merely ignoring the horrible things that the Boston bomber has done in praying for him? Is Rabbi Boteach right to claim that “[T]o show kindness to the murderer,” as the Christians are doing, “is to violate the victim yet again”?
Enoch Kuo | Princeton Revisions |
AC Featured in the Ivy League Christian Observer
Harvard Ichthus '14 staff Jihye Choi covers the 2013 Augustine Collective retreat, and discusses how the journals are fostering a national movement across colleges.
Jihye Choi | The Ivy League Christian Observer | Spring 2013March 2013
Eliot’s Early Poetry and the Search for a Saving Faith
In the three years of reverberations from “The Waste Land,” Eliot still struggled with the same problem, as well as the same solution. He was dissatisfied with despair but simply could not find a better response.
Will Hogan | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2012
Secular Ethics Find Cohesion In Christ
A Christian ethic derived from the Bible can incorporate each perspective in some fashion: existentially, we seek the inner satisfaction of living as God designed us to live; normatively, this design is based on God’s authoritative word and law; and situationally, we seek to obey God by finding opportunities to advance his kingdom.
Willis Zhang | UPenn Common Subjects |February 2013
Does It Matter That They’re Christian?
Summary: Mumford & Sons, like many Christian bands on mainstream charts, don’t want their album to be taken as religious or as a “Christian statement.” This begs the question, does it even matter that they’re Christian?
Elizabeth Jean-Marie | The Brown Cornerstone | Vol II Issue I, Fall 2012
The New Apologetic
The New Apologetic is actually old—as old as the church. It is, quite simply, orthodoxy, in all its depths and richness.
Peter Blair | Fare Forward via Patheos |January 2013
Whom Are We Friends with and Why?
As the ancient philosophers recognized the ease with which we can settle for less from our relationships, the current cultural context challenges us, diverts us from what it means to have a true friend and be one.
Hannah Jung | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2012, Volume 7, Issue 1
An Interview with Professor Glenn Loury
Brown University economist Dr. Glenn Loury’s conversion opened his eyes to the reality and necessity of spiritual transformation and to the inadequacy of any purely secular attempt to model human moral behavior.
Philip Trammell | The Brown Cornerstone | Vol. II Issue I, Fall 2012December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
Linguistics and the Bible
Analyzing the Bible as an inspired piece of literature without taking into account the scientific constraints of human language is misguided.
Christopher Hopper | The Harvard Ichthus | Volume 7, Number 4, Winter 2011
Christians, Pagans, and the Good Life
In contrast to the three most influential worldviews of the Roman world— Gnosticism, Stoicism, Neoplatonism—Christianity proclaimed that our earthly realm and needs were of tremendous importance to both our humanity and God.
Suiwen Liang | The Dartmouth Apologia | Volume 6, Issue 2 - Spring 2012
Physics and the Idea of God
The way in which we think the natural laws work suggests a new way of thinking about God and how God may act in the world: energizing, guiding, and holding all things together.
Prof. Stuart Crampton | The Williams Telos | Spring 2011, Issue 5September 2012
Thoughts on New Atheism
Every worldview makes truth claims and faith assumptions to show its uniqueness and superiority over other worldviews, and New Atheism is no exception.
Jabez Yeo | U Penn Lamp Post | Issue 01, Spring 2012
Harvard’s Editor-in-Chief Reflects on Depression, Despair, and Hope
During my four years at Harvard, I contemplated committing suicide no less than three times. It wasn’t until I almost failed a class during my senior year that I realized that I struggle with depression.
Jordan Monge | The Harvard Ichthus Fish Tank |
The Moral Gap
It is incoherent to put us under a demand we cannot reach. Yet surely we are under the moral demand. How are we to explain this paradox?
Dr. John Hare | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2012, Volume 6, Issue 2August 2012
Is Anything Worth Believing In? A Review of a Conversation with John Lennox
God could have easily made a universe in which bad things didn’t happen. However, Lennox argues that “the one thing you will not get in an automated, robotic, computerized universe is love, relationship, and so on... In order to have the possibility of love or relationship, you must create the possibility of choice.”
Sarah Banks | The UPenn Lamp Post | Issue 01, Spring 2012
A Review of The Meaning of Life: A Short Introduction
Perhaps we are making the false assumption that the question, “what is the meaning of life?” can have an answer like “what is the meaning of the word ‘apple’?” does. What do we really mean when we ask, “what is the meaning of life?”
Kelly Maeshiro | The Harvard Ichthus | Volume 7, Number 4, Winter 2011
God, Unifier of Mathematical Truths
It is peculiar enough that Christianity was once considered the more elegant worldview, and from this worldview came the rise of modern mathematics.
Willis Zhang | UPenn Lamp Post | Issue 1, Spring 2012