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

Why Politics?

Have we limited the church’s full support of Christians in “secular” fields, diminishing their calling as ambassadors in “secular” spheres of society?

Isabella Chow | UC Berkeley TAUG | Spring 2018

Searching for the Ear of God

I myself reckoned with the reality I faced: I also thought prayer was sort of stupid. It certainly felt stupid, primarily for two reasons.

Jesse Rines | The Hopkins Dialectic | Spring 2017

History’s Jesus: An Exploration of Historical Analysis

Scholars have developed a number of criteria to inform an accurate reconstruction of the historical Jesus. Among Ehrman’s preferred methods are independent attestation and the principle of dissimilarity.

India Perdue | The Dartmouth Apologia | 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

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

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

Examining the Synoptic Gospel Problem

Although the Synoptic problem is usually put forth as a primarily literary problem, more recent advances in our knowledge of oral traditions have made scholars start to shift the emphasis given to the role of oral memory and traditions in their views of the Synoptic overlaps and differences.

Erik Johnson | MIT et Spiritus | Spring 2017

Demythologizing Protestant Christianity’s Relationship with Nazi Germany

It is important to realize that the racial anti-Semitism which characterized Nazi Germany was not an invention of the National Socialists, but rather a radicalization of many social and religious factors which predated Hitler’s rise to power.

Rebecca Ito | The Wheaton Pub | Fall 2016

Who Are the Middle Eastern Christians?

Westerners’ broad concern for Middle Eastern Christians was and is well intentioned, but poorly informed, in part due to apathy and in part due to the lack of resources on the subject.

Christian Šidák | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2016

Theology of Terrorism: Exploring the Roots of Religious Violence

Unfortunately, the question of what “terrorism” actually means is a surprisingly difficult one, considering its near-constant use by the media today.

Joshua Tseng-Tham | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 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

Review: Can We See Through Others’ Eyes?

I have noticed how little current scholarship in religious studies takes the perspective of religious practitioners into account.

Jeff Cross | University of Minnesota Between Cities | Spring 2016

The Christian Faith

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

Irving Nestor | The Hopkins Dialectic | Spring 2016

Calling a New Humanity

What was it about Jesus that allowed him to bring Jews and Greeks together into “one new humanity?”

Enoch Kuo | Princeton Revisions |

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

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 |

August 2018