God-talk and the Suffering of the Guilty

They have committed crimes most would see as purely evil and are responsible for the most severe moments of suffering in many people’s lives. Yet I hold that they, too, are sufferers.

Noah Black | Vanderbilt Synesis | Fall 2018

Jennifer Frey on Virtue and the Meaning of Happiness

"To me, the interesting question about happiness is this: what might actually fulfill you? What is the highest good you can seek?"

Grace Liu | Vanderbilt Synesis | Spring 2019

Suffering, Wholeness, and the Human Condition

I enjoyed talking with her, though I felt strange whenever the conversation moved toward my life goals, as if we were entering a realm, a country - the future - which only one of us would ever witness.

Aldis Petriceks | Stanford Vox Clara | Spring 2019

The Soul’s Hunger: Our Physical Appetites as More than Physical

Yet pursuing “food, cheer, and song” means something different. Valuing these means cherishing vulnerability, family, and community.

Zachary Lee | Cornell Claritas | Spring 2019

Hope

If good and evil intrinsically oppose each other, how can they coexist in the presence of an omnipotent and omniscient God?

Noelle Michael | Vanderbilt Synesis | Fall 2018

Pursuing Unity in Diversity

Instead of ignoring the reality of our physical differences and the history of oppression and racism caused by these differences, my hope is that awareness of our common misperceptions about race can be the first step in recognizing and understanding what racism itself is and how we can combat it.

Grace Liu | The Vanderbilt Synesis | Fall 2018

Towards a Stained-Glass Home: Diaspora and the Goodness of WashU

I long for a true home where I can rest and belong in a deep, abiding way that enfolds and transcends all my identities, experiences, values, and relationships. I haven’t found that yet, but I long for it with all my heart.

Miles Woodhull | The WashU Kairos | Fall 2018

A Clash in the Cosmos: Reflections on Madeleine L’Engle’s Classic Novel

A Wrinkle in Time might open with an ominous dark and stormy night, but the novel goes on to triumphantly remind us that love and light will ultimately prevail.

Naomi Kim | The Brown & RISD Cornerstone | Spring 2018

Against (Our Own) Heresies

[Heresy] starts with a narrow selective reading of scripture that is then over-emphasized and serves as a tangential point for one’s own desires.

Erik Johnson | MIT et Spiritus | Spring 2018

DAMN: Kendrick Lamar’s Radical Lament

Kendrick Lamar is currently one of the world’s most talented lyricists, a generational storyteller, and a Christian grappling with eternal condemnation.

Kion You | The Brown & RISD Cornerstone | Spring 2018

The Ones Who Walk Away: Social Justice, Shame, and the Church

Le Guin’s story, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," won the 1974 Hugo Award for Best Short Story, with many readers interpreting it as an allegory about societal injustices that are seen but remain unaddressed.

Miles Woodhull | | Spring 2018

A Call to Work

Through examining the biblical notions of calling and vocation, we will see how these seemingly opposites – a longing for something grand and the reality of the mundane – actually complement each other.

Elizabeth Schmucker | Cornell Claritas | Spring 2017

Standing United: A Rhetoric Major’s Reflection

Although nothing is necessarily wrong with standing against something that is wrong, the implications of the word “against” reiterates the divided and polarizing environment we are looking to transcend.

Victoria Lai | UC Berkeley TAUG | Fall 2017

Living in a Secular Age

In the end, secularity is a broadening of people’s experiences with where they locate meaning. From this lens, secularity doesn’t look so much like a good or bad thing, but more as an opportunity.

Noah Black | The Vanderbilt Synesis | Fall 2017

Race and/or the Christian Identity?

All Christians share a place in the intersectionality of faith and race, but these identities need not be subject to an “either-or” debate.

Abi Bernard | Cornell Claritas | Fall 2017

Interview with N. T. Wright: The Reality of the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church

"If you believe that the evidence for the resurrection to be compelling, why do you think so many people nonetheless reject it?"

The Dartmouth Apologia Staff | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2016

War and Peace in Christian Tradition

What are some wise insights and necessary points of reflection that we, Christian or not, should take heed of when confronted with violence, war and the question of justice?

Erik Johnson | MIT et Spiritus | Fall 2016

A Picture Not a Copy: Gadamer Helps Us Honor Art (And Each Other)

At the beginning of Truth and Method Gadamer attempts to rehabilitate art as not merely an aesthetic experience, but as a genuine mode of knowing truth.

Michael Mullaney | The Wheaton Pub | Spring 2016

Discerning Fact from Fiction: Christianity’s Middle Eastern Heritage

First, the Western-Christian imagination has in many ways hijacked the Jesus story, and changed it into a distinctly Western narrative that deviates from the history and truth of the real biblical setting.

Sharidan Russell | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2016

The Heart of Mental Health

This, then, is the crux of the conception of mental health suggested by the Christian worldview: being mentally well is more than reducing a negative display of symptoms.

Jake Casale | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2017

God Loves Hip-Hop

Hip-hop will never be a “perfect” platform for God’s message because humans will never be “perfect” vessels for God’s message, yet many of its musicians recognize their God-given blessings and brokenness and are excited to project them into the musical world.

Abigail Rogers-Berner | The Hopkins Dialectic | Spring 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 2017

Everything Under the Sun is Absurd

Since July, I have been reading The Plague, by Albert Camus, alongside an older member of my home church. We discuss parts of the book through the lens of Christianity, and one topic which recurs over and over is the absurd.

Michael McGinnis | Cornell Claritas | Fall 2016

Restless Seeker: From Absurdism to Hope

Perhaps as Camus had illustrated in the myth of Sisyphus, the struggle itself was enough to fill the heart. Except that with time it was not.

Erjona Topalli | MIT et Spiritus | Spring 2016

The Gospel in the First Century

What I found in my studies and hope to summarize in this article is that a deeper understanding of the first-century Jewish world in which Jesus lived makes for a much richer appreciation of the good news that he proclaimed.

Erik Johnson | MIT et Spiritus | Spring 2016

The Christian Faith

One way God manifests His nature in us is through our rationality.

Irving Nestor | The Hopkins Dialectic | Spring 2016

The Suspense of Faith

But the doubt expressed by Arnold and Russell is not limited to those who decide finally to reject god.

Karl Johnson | The Hopkins Dialectic | Spring 2016

How Christians Navigate College and Career

I talked with six Christian seniors at Harvard, each with varying concentrations and potential career paths, to understand how Christians at Harvard think about their faith, academics, and future careers.

Brooke Dickens | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2015

Confession as Freedom

I would suggest that, logically, those who are the most enslaved are those who don’t even know that they’re slaves.

Nathan Otey | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2014

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

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 2014

I Believe in Magazines: Proverbs for Publishing

"Because magazines are literally periodical, they create an ongoing community—readers, writers, editors, benefactors. And only communities can change cultures."

Augustine Collective | James K.A. Smith | January 2015

A Christian View of History

The strength of the metanarrative of progress and the triumph of the will falls short under examination.

Nathaniel Schmucker | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2014

The Art of Reconciliation

When faced with the daunting task of comforting a friend who was contemplating suicide, I felt utterly helpless in trying to prevent her actions, while she felt utterly hopeless in trying to control her emotions.

Jess Tong | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 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 2013

Second Chances

How then can a Christian advocate punishment that never ends and a criminal background that never fades?

Jessica Zou | Princeton Revisions | Fall 2013

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 |

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

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 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

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 2013

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

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

September 2019