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

Strength in Weakness: A Call to Authentic Vulnerability

We learn early on that we should always appear as if everything is fine all the time. The demand to be effortlessly perfect leaves no room for openness about our struggles or imperfections.

Sarah Proctor | Duke Crux | Fall 2018

The Lovely Embrace of Pain

Another principle characteristic of Lucretius’ view is that it ultimately seeks painlessness. For this purpose, Lucretius urges isolation. However, there are two critical issues with this goal-orientation.

Jamie Har | Cornell Claritas | Fall 2017

Faith in a Crowded Space

Yet most important to Dante, beyond the universe’s organization and population, is the fact that he was connected to it, and that the whole thing was powered by love.

Tess Fitzsimmons | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2017

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

Porn is Not Private: Why Viewing Pornography Perpetuates Injustice

If we have the social conscience to denounce the lies of sexual objectification or normalizing violence, we cannot let pornography get away with the same ideas.

Brandon Wright | The Harvard Ichthus | Spring 2016

Texts from God

Let me know when you're free to talk, I've been missing you.

Nia Campinha-Bacote | The Brown & RISD Cornerstone | Spring 2015

The Desire for a Relational God Behind Kurt Vonnegut’s “EPICAC”

The story is ostensibly a sad tale of a short-lived machine exploited by humans, yet it is also a story about a creature yearning to connect with what it perceives as a higher order of beings.

Emily Lau | The Columbia Crown & Cross | Spring 2015

Freedom and Submission

The hours that go into surprise birthday parties, emergency hospital trips, and listening to feelings and frustrations are our submission to one another.

Vivian Zhang | Claremont Ekklesia | Spring 2015

Why Friendship?

It forged a deeper commitment to one another; the sacrament of baptism created a bond of love reminding me that, whatever I might feel as a single person, I did belong to one family at least.

Wesley Hill | The Harvard Ichthus | Fall 2012

My Chains Are Gone

Soon, though, I caught myself identifying and sympathizing with [Milton's] Satan. It was, at first, a very disconcerting realization. And yet, the more we read, the more I reflected that I was familiar with Satan’s Hell.

Chih McDermott | The Williams Telos | Spring 2013

How Can the Gods Meet Us Face to Face?

The writer and Christian apologist G.K. Chesterson wrote, “Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity,” and Till We Have Faces is this sort of necessary fiction that doesn’t only alter our perspective but has the power to call into question who we are and what we live for.

Micaela Walker | UC Berkeley To An Unknown God | Volume 6, Issue 1, Spring 2013

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

September 2019