On the Grief of Animal Death
Grief Grief is no respecter of person or of time. It is not convenient but slaps you across the face at a moment’s notice. It is not unlike the thief in the night. All of life is but a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow (James 4:14). Undoubtedly, each situation is, in its own way, distinct, but the constant is grief. It comes in all shapes and sizes and levels of intensity, whether from the death of a loved one or the death of a pet...
Civil Associations: The Battle for a Peaceful Society
In March 2023, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed The Parents Bill of Rights Act to bring more transparency and accountability to the public education system by protecting the ability of parents to access curriculum, reading lists, and school library holdings, and to be informed about actions taken toward their children regarding gender identity and bathroom/locker room usage. This piece of legislation would have...
Forming Hearts through Stories: A Review of Tending the Heart of Virtue, by Vigen Guroian
In an earlier essay, I lauded the benefits of teaching catechisms to young children. Although I still stand by that piece, I have become convinced that stories—rather than sheer didactic teaching—are central to the shaping of our inner lives, characters, and understanding of God. I suspect that memorizing a catechism without the benefit of a story-formed heart will most likely produce a meager harvest. By God’s design, stories are at...
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Incarnational Ethic
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the most proactive pastors and ministry leaders in twentieth-century Germany. Bonhoeffer was a faithful pastor, theologian, and an influential leader during the challenges that German churches faced during the Second World War. Bonhoeffer said concerning an incarnational approach to ethics, “The subject matter of a Christian ethic is God’s reality revealed in Christ becoming real among God’s...
Who Do You Think You Are? A Youngish Mother Examines Internet Culture
I am sure we have all heard the phrase, “Who do you think you are?” maybe in a movie when one character feels particular disgust toward or frustration with another character. Maybe you have asked this question of a person in your life, seriously or sardonically. I think, though, that this a good question for us to ask ourselves, and I fear that, for many more of us than would like to admit it, the answer to the question could involve...
Motherhood: The Ideal and the Diabolical
Mother’s Day evokes strong emotions, both good and bad. This is partly because, since the Fall, each of our mothers fits roughly into either the ideal type of motherhood or the anti-ideal—the diabolical type—of motherhood. In our annual cultural celebration of Mother’s Day, we tend to elevate the bare position of motherhood itself—as if it is a good in itself—or even just the fact of womanhood (which, perhaps, was not originally a...
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