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 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 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

The Church Fathers and the Rationality of Christianity: An Interview with Dr. Sara Parvis

Clement of Alexandria complained that his fellow Christians thought of philosophy as some kind of ogre and ran screaming when they heard it.

Dr. Sara Parvis, Chris Hauser | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2013

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

Tolerance and Social Hope

Both the left and the right are unhappy with tolerance. No one wants to tolerate because that implies being loose with one’s values; no one wants to be tolerated because that means being regarded as deficient in some way.

Jonathan Lin | Princeton Revisions |

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 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

The Messy Theology of Justice

Love is not about the show and discipline of religious habits, but about the raw, arduous, and messy everyday work of justice.

Hana Lehmann | Swarthmore Peripateo | Spring 2013

Christianity and the Gaze

The problem for Christians is thus the problem of invisibility, which empire exacerbates, for in empire, that which is unsightly is exported from the collective imagination.

Kelly Maeshiro | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2012

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

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 |

A Constitutional Interpretation of the Bible

A large majority of my time this semester has been dedicated to studying constitutional interpretation for my freshman seminar. This has prompted me to think a lot about biblical interpretation, too, and how theories on constitutional interpretation might be applied to the Bible.

Jessica Zou | Princeton Revisions |

Christianity and Capitalism: Counterparts of Freedom

Though Christianity has a moral framework and capitalism a utilitarian one, their mutual respect of individual choice and autonomy makes them reconcilable on a more fundamental level.

Mark Diplacido | The Yale Logos | Winter 2012

On the Trinitarian God Friendship and the Wonder of Creation interview

On the Trinitarian God, Friendship and the Wonder of Creation – An Interview with Father James V. Schall

"You have taught college undergraduates for many years. What are the basic questions of meaning and purpose that every liberal arts student should consider?"

Christopher Hauser | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2012, Volume 7, Issue 1

Aquinas on Everyday Emotions

As we understand ourselves and see extreme emotions in the light of many everyday impulses, we need to cultivate emotions that align with our intellect, reason, and that most fundamental desire, the desire that God implemented within us for Himself.

David Nolan | The Williams Telos | The Williams Telos, Fall 2012, Issue 8

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 2012

Historicity & Holy War: Putting the Crusades in Context

When analyzing any historical event, and particularly one so fraught with misinterpretation and exaggeration, it is crucial to look at both its context and its causes. The Crusades did not spontaneously appear from a historical vacuum.

Blake Neff | The Dartmouth Apologia | Volume 6, Issue 1, Fall 2011

Faith and Paradox: G.K. Chesterton’s Philosophy of Christian Paradox

Within its long history, Christianity has been accused of almost every kind of vice imaginable. Strangely enough, its critics have attacked it for contradictory reasons. Some have decried it for its unworldliness and pessimistic outlook on the material world. Others have condemned Christianity for blinding the people, giving false promises of divine mercy and a glorious afterlife. Hell, it is said, is a doctrine breeding despair; but Heaven, they say with equal vehemence, is a doctrine breeding false hope.

Chris Hauser | The Dartmouth Apologia | Volume 6, Issue 1, Fall 2011

April 2014