Pilgrim Marpeck, from “Men in Judgment and the Peasant Aristocracy,” 473-475, in The Writings of Pilgrim Marpeck (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1978). Pilgrim Marpeck joined the Anabaptists in Austria in 1528, in the region of Rattenberg and Triol, a region which had...
Month: January 2021
A Knock at Midnight
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Martin Luther King Jr.’s sermon “A Knock at Midnight” addresses the need for all Christians to align their hearts to the work of God. The message from this sermon left many Christians living in America asking themselves about the purpose of religion in their everyday lives.
Freedom For Fidelity
Justin Ariel Bailey
What is freedom for? In this sermon, Bailey unpacks the “fuller dimension of freedom” that directus us toward fidelity to the God of justice, righteousness, and liberation: a restoration of our creational purpose. While the church has not always lived up to this vision (and sometimes, as Bailey reminds us, miserably failed), this is still the call that God gives us. God calls us, once again, as those who have been mercifully and graciously welcomed into salvation, to follow him as the one who sets himself against the oppressive powers of the day to liberate his people, to root out idolatry and injustice, to live lives dedicated to Christ, the Lord over all. Our freedom as Christians is “always the freedom to serve, the freedom to sacrifice, the freedom to put others beforeo ourselves, the freedom to speak up for our neighbors and to lay down our lives for our enemies.”
The Complexities of Forbearance
Gregory Lee
In the middle of the twentieth century, American Christianity experienced a subtle but seismic shift. As sociologist Robert Wuthnow observed, where Christians had once distinguished themselves according to denominational identity, following the Second World War,...
We Need a National Examination of Conscience
Bishop Robert Barron
So many of our democratic principles are grounded in deeply religious principles: equality, freedom, the dignity of the individual. To see violent people invading the space historically opened up to debate the best ways to further these principles for the citizenry was both disturbing and unnerving. We all must engage in a national examination of conscience.
Justice in a Time Out of Joint
Brad Littlejohn
Trapped within his own private reality, the vigilante can no longer be sure whether he is acting to vindicate the corrupted order of public justice or merely to achieve some private catharsis.
What Is Political Authority?
Susannah Black
You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn. John Buchan, The Power-House What is government for? What is...
Openings in Our Fractured Republic
James K.A. Smith, Yuval Levin
James K.A. Smith: At the heart of your diagnosis is that we've got this contemporary penchant for nostalgia, which is a desire to return to some part of the twentieth century. Whether it's '63 or '83 or something like that, people have some golden age in mind. But...
Citizens Aren’t Just Born. They’re Formed
Kevin den Dulk
My university (yes: by press time Calvin College will be a university) recently crafted an “educational framework.” Its purpose, as I understand it, is to “operationalize” our primary mission. Three of its four categories of goals—“faith,” “learning,” and...
Sowing for Trust
Anne Snyder
We are living through times that often feel like one long commentary on Joni Mitchell’s line “you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.” From quotidian encounters on the street to public sacraments, hospitality in the flesh to basic truth-telling from our leaders,...