October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
Why States Fail: Lessons from Augustine
If we can ascertain our nature, we can begin to understand what makes societies perpetually problematic.
Jeffrey Poomkudy | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2017
Nonviolent Action and the Revolution of the Cross
In fact, in line with this trend of “questioning institutions”, MIT has recently announced a $250,000 award to further encourage “extraordinary civil, non-violent disobedience for the benefit of society.” But why is this all happening?
Matthew Chun | MIT et Spiritus | Spring 2017February 2017
January 2017
November 2016
August 2016
April 2016
September 2015
May 2015
April 2015
A Few Thoughts on “the Future”
This problematic tension between one’s desires to make an indelible mark upon the memory of this world and the elusive nature of the future is resolved in a very unexpected way within the Christian tradition.
Viktor Palenyy | UC Berkeley TAUG | Fall 2014
Where is God in History?
There remains one point about the narrative of history that is worth rejoicing over, and that is the power of larger, contextual narratives.
Henry Li | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2014March 2015
Blessed Endurance
The Book of Job was one that I found initially too intimidating to read and I misconstrued it as merely a story about suffering.
Stephanie Yom | UC Berkeley TAUG | Fall 2014
The Universe: Magical, Meaningful, and Modern
Can a materialistic, physicalist account of the universe answer the fundamental questions of our existence—what does it mean to be human?
Marylynne Sitko | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2014February 2015
January 2015
October 2014
September 2014
The Alternative Lens of Revelation
As responsible thinkers in this society, then, it is important to endeavor to read [the book of Revelation] responsibly, keeping to the message as truly as we can.
Shaun Lim | The Harvard Ichthus | Spring 2013
The Rebellion of Faith
Christians do not know concretely how God will produce a favorable outcome from difficult situations, but they trust in Him because of evidence supporting His promise to do so and His overall track record throughout the Bible.
Brionna Atkins | The Harvard Ichthus | Spring 2013August 2014
July 2014
Unexpected Miracles
My third day in Berkeley, I discovered that my next-door neighbor shared my faith. God knew I would need Christian friends as I entered a period of independence, so He provided one for me.
Lisa Ann Yu | UC Berkeley TAUG | Spring 2014
God’s Sovereignty in the Midst of Depression
Reconciling the Christian hope we are meant to have with the crushing experience of hopelessness, anxiety and sadness we may actually feel can seem like an irresolvable struggle.
Tatianna Kufferath | The Columbia Crown & Cross |June 2014
Peace in the Unending Storms
I felt so empty clutching the cross I was wearing around my neck and I just remember thinking, ‘I don’t want to keep living this nightmare.’
Meriah Barajas | UC Berkeley To An Unknown God | Spring 2014
On Olber’s Paradox
The question my dad posed was this: “Does there necessarily have to have been a beginning?”
Sharon Liu | |
Christ’s Crowning Glory
Most directly, [the symbol of the Crown and Cross] refers to Columbia’s founding as an Anglican college: the fruit of a Christian Church under the British monarch.
Luke Foster | The Columbia Crown and Cross | Spring 2014
The Science of Christianity
I am currently a third year and studying Integrative Biology because I am fascinated by science, work in a research lab that focuses on genetics and evolution, and I am a Christian.
Noah Cho | UC Berkeley TAUG | Spring 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 2013
Happiness in Haiti
“But how? Your situation is still the same. The missionary told me that you’re no longer hungry when you praise, but you must still be hungry afterwards. Everything’s the same, so how are you happy?”
Kristen Kim | Princeton Revisions | Fall 2013April 2014
Hands and Feet
In medical school, we are taught to strive to be “humanistic”. We have an honor society dedicated to humanism in medicine, but we are never told exactly what it means.
David D. Chen | Princeton Revisions | Spring 2012
Tunnel Vision
Soon Frankenstein is at the mercy of his ambition, channeling his energies into one creation while ignoring the other—made up of human beings and the earth they inhabit—that he used to love above all else.
Sandy Fox | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2013March 2014
February 2014
Religious but Not Spiritual
I don’t feel a spiritual energy, a spiritual connection, or a spiritual anything – especially when held in tension with the concrete, empirical, and measurable.
Michael Toy | Princeton Revisions | Fall 2013
Behold, I Stand at the Door
I am speaking up because I want Christians who think that there are no rapists in their midst or that sexual violence is an issue that only affects certain kinds of people to realize how different the truth looks.
Quitterie Gounot | Swarthmore Peripateo | Fall 2013
On 61 Main: An interview with Judy Williams, Healer
The entranceway of the Northern Berkshire Pregnancy Support Center (NBPSC) matched the adjacent storefronts; hollowed out of the main building there was space to unbutton a coat, shift a shoulder bag, or nervously shake off second thoughts before reaching for the door handle.
Bianca Brown | The Williams Telos | Fall 2013January 2014
December 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 2013
Keep Asking
In the absence of a story that connects us to what is going on around us, we find that any sort of yearning for purpose is quickly replaced by a frenzied and arbitrary pursuit of desires. The Christian faith leads us elsewhere.
Roshni Patel | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2012November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
Becoming Oneself: C.S. Lewis’ Allegory of the Afterlife
Accepting dignity rather than attempting to create it requires faith, for we must trust that what God has designed us to be is greater than anything we could mold ourselves into.
Macy Ferguson | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2013
A Story about the Church
There are many of us, aren’t there? Many of us “grew up in the Church” and now peer back into our past with questions, doubts, frustration, and perhaps anger.
Ryan Stewart | The Claremont Ekklesia | Fall 2013August 2013
The Didion Conundrum
It’s clawing and creeping and unavoidable, and you become so exhausted and feel so generic in your depression that no one speaks of it. No one speaks of the [sophomore] slump.
Margaret Nickens | The Brown & RISD Cornerstone | Spring 2013
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 2013
On Writing
In writing—in any creative act—we image our God, who spoke each minute detail of the world into existence, and in taking time to craft story out of words, we affirm the inherent value of embodied life that Christ so beautifully redeemed through the Incarnation.
Debbie Knubley | The Wheaton Pub | Fall 2012July 2013
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
When Things Stop Making Sense
At the very least, I hope to convince you that the philosophy of materialism is not at all obvious, and should not be accepted unquestioningly. After all, why should electrons go whizzing around subject to mysterious mathematical laws?
Stephen Mackereth | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2012, Volume 8, Number 3