February 2019
October 2017
August 2017
On Marilynne Robinson’s Lila
In Marilynne Robinson's Lila, we are meant to see ourselves writ large: pitiful and scared, and not quite sure where we stand with God, or how we found ourselves here, in this house, tending to the garden, living this sort of life.
Kate Massinger | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2016
The Price of Glory
At one point in [Martin Scorsese's film] Silence the Inquisitor sneers at one of the captured priests, “the price for your glory is their suffering!"
Richard Ibekwe | MIT et Spiritus | Spring 2017January 2017
August 2016
June 2016
January 2016
August 2015
Abortion and Social Justice
The greatest burden for the woman, more than an unplanned pregnancy, is the burden of living but knowing that she felt her circumstances forced her to terminate a human life within her.
Allen Huang | UC Berkeley TAUG | Spring 2015
Metaphysical Rebellion from Cain to Camus
Perhaps more than any other twentieth-century thinker, Albert Camus submitted a daunting challenge to the position of humanity in the cosmos.
Philip Jeffery | The Columbia Crown & Cross | Spring 2015
The Aestheticism of the Christian “Death”
So the hope of this essay is this: that both secular and Christian audiences find commonality in the comfort of beauty for ashes.
Henry Li | The Harvard Ichthus | Spring 2015July 2015
June 2015
How a Brown Student Grew in His Faith While Living Homeless
Living in the shelter for a year gave Kevin Simmons a passion for giving back and serving others.
Elizabeth Jean-Marie | The Brown & RISD Cornerstone | Spring 2015
Experiencing Christ Across Cultures
I quickly became familiar with how starkly the cultures of England and Ghana differ from one another, almost as much as the perceptions of Jesus and the way people practice their faith do.
Johanan Sowah | The Columbia Crown & Cross | Spring 2015October 2014
July 2014
June 2014
Eggshells
What is home? My parents immigrated to the States from South Korea, I was born and raised in California, I go to university in Rhode Island, and I am now studying abroad in Dublin, Ireland.
Clare Kim | The Brown & RISD Cornerstone | Spring 2014
Costly Consolation: Freud’s Illusion and Bonhoefferian Grace
Sigmund Freud once wrote that the idea of religion is “born from man’s need to make his helplessness tolerable.”
Paul Escher | St. Olaf Avodah | Spring 2014May 2014
Affliction Furthers the Flight in Me
Inspired by the story of the resurrection, 17th century English poet George Herbert wrote his short poem “Easter Wings.” The poem beautifully recreates the restorative power of Christ’s resurrection.
Chih McDermott | The Williams Telos | Fall 2013
Finding Oneself Beyond the Empirical Fence
But wouldn’t everybody act more or less the same if there were no religion and instead most of the same rules were held on a purely secular basis?
Nicholas Zahorodny | Swarthmore Peripateo | Fall 2013April 2014
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 2013
The Friend Who Went
I am still in my own healing process, although it has been a little over five and a half years since my cousin’s death.
Raquel Rodriguez | The Williams Telos | 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 2013
Love Pain
Retaliation is only fair. It is widely accepted that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It is only natural. But nothing about the Gospel is natural.
Joshua Joo | UC Berkeley TAUG | Fall 2013January 2014
Love Your Enemies: A Radical Call to Christian Pacifism
“But!” you cry – I can almost hear it now – what about saving society from criminals, and children from murderers, and Europe from Hitler, and America from the Terrorists? In sum, what about all the innocent people whom we have a duty to protect from the evildoers?
Nathan Otey | The Harvard Ichthus | Spring 2013
Jesus: The End of Personal Autonomy and Identity?
Indeed, it appears that at its best, Christianity has severely restrictive, and often arbitrary, rules that limit one’s ability to do as one wants.
Matthew Johnson | The Yale Logos |
Abundant Life, Abundant Love, and the Empty Tomb
At the empty tomb, I want to ask the same two questions as at the Cross - why is it necessary, and why is it possible?
Nathan Scalise | Swarthmore Peripateo | Fall 2013December 2013
A Religious Animal?
How to understand the story of the Fall while accepting that death, too, was there from the beginning of life on earth?
Stephen Mackereth | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2013
Salvific Suffering and the Dark Night of the Soul
We have begun to “anaesthetize our existence,” writes biblical scholar Luke Timothy Johnson. Our public discourse often assumes that the most difficult lives are simply not worth living.
Robert Smith | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2013October 2013
September 2013
July 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 |
Language and Its Uses: The Difficulty in Communicating with a Heavenly God
Scripture is littered with evidence that our voices — our interaction with God through language — have divine importance and implication.
Gabriel Brotzman | The Brown & RISD Cornerstone | Spring 2013 Volume II Issue IIJune 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
January 2013
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 2012September 2012
August 2012
Sacramental Complications: Sufjan Stevens’ “Casimir Pulaski Day”
Sufjan Stevens is adored by the indie music movement, which is often antiestablishment and anti-religious, yet his music honestly handles the grittiness of lived faith. “Casimir Pulaski Day” is the firsthand narration of the death of a loved one within a Christian community.
Tristan Macdonald | 5 College Slant | Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2012
The Incarnation
Christianity doesn’t preach a distant God who turned a blind eye to mankind, but rather tells of a God who became a man himself. God didn’t simply send a message; He became the messenger. We recall this momentous occasion – the divine incarnation – each year at Christmas.
Jordan Monge | The Harvard Ichthus | Volume 7, Number 4, Winter 2011
The Marriage of Justice and Mercy
Christianity has seeming contradictions like a dog has fleas. This one consistently arises: how can a God of justice be, at the same time, a God of mercy? George MacDonald brings this contradiction to a point: “Those who say justice means the punishing of sin, and mercy the not punishing of sin, and attribute both to God, would make a schism in the very idea of God.”
Andrew Kim | Brown Cornerstone | Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2012December 2011
He Is Risen: A Defense of the Historicity of the Resurrection
The resurrection is the foundation of the Christian faith; its occurrence either demonstrably proves Christianity as true or its falsity disproves the faith. Here I outline an argument for the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ – an argument similar to, albeit slightly more thorough and well-studied – than the one which persuaded me to become a Christian approximately two years ago.
Jordan Monge | The Harvard Ichthus | Volume 7, Number 2, Spring 2011
Surprised: Wordsworth on the Coexistence of Joy and Sorrow
William Wordsworth wrote this sonnet two years after the sudden death of his four-year-old daughter, Catherine, but in it he grieves as though not a day has gone by. When he cries out in misery, “How could I forget thee?” it is both rhetorical – indicative of how deeply he loved her – and guilt-stricken, having in fact let her slip from his mind.
Inez Tan | The Williams Telos | Issue 4, Fall 2010