An immigrant family camping adventure
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An immigrant family camping adventure

Author, outdoors activist and founder of @BrownPeopleCamping (brownpeoplecamping.com), Ambreen Tariq relates the fictional narrative of the Khazi family, Indian immigrants to the United States who go camping for the first time. The youngest child, Fatima, has had a hard week at school. Her classmates teased her about the food she ate for lunch and the…

An overview of a worrying development
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An overview of a worrying development

The Flag + the Cross is a short primer on what Christian nationalism is and how it operates in the United States today. Drawing on its deep roots in American history, the authors explain central themes, such as beliefs that the United States is uniquely a Christian nation, a chosen people, blessed by God, with…

Raskolnikov and resurrection
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Raskolnikov and resurrection

Many years ago, when I was still a graduate student, I decided to read some of the major Russian novels of the 19th and 20th centuries. It’s taken me decades, but I finally got to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (1866). The story is set in the imperial capital of St. Petersburg. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov…

Surrender and a new beginning
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Surrender and a new beginning

“I am in awe of the poetic power of the scriptures, how you can’t approach the subject of God without metaphor.” So writes Bono late in his wide-ranging and engaging memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. The artist cannot tell his story, or the remarkable story of U2, apart from Christian faith, or apart from…

Is your Bible study biased?
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Is your Bible study biased?

This is a rigorous, concise and entertaining book for anyone interested in the history and function of Scripture, and how the current approach to study and interpretation of the Bible can be improved. Hahn and Wilker pull you into history to show how apparently old theological and political disputes are relevant to Biblical studies today….

An examination of recent religious thought
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An examination of recent religious thought

When does healthy patriotism slip over into destructive nationalism? When is Christian social action unjust to others? Are Christians saving democracy in North America or destroying it? These are important questions at this particular moment in the history of the church, democracy, and good governance globally. Paul Miller’s answers to such timely questions are a…

Rich reflections for our tech-saturated world
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Rich reflections for our tech-saturated world

In the mid-90s, students studying engineering at Dordt College (now Dordt University) took three semesters of physics using a textbook authored by David Halliday, Robert Resnick and Jearl Walker. As one of those students, I loved how each chapter started with a puzzling question that drew me into engaging the material, like “What size is…

New life for 120-year-old words
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New life for 120-year-old words

How did Princeton Theological Seminary’s community and wider Reformed enclaves receive Abraham Kuyper as a person and theologian during his extended sojourn in the United States in 1898? What became of Kuyper’s hope to establish Calvinism as a spiritual guide for not only Dutch, but also other nations’ public life, without establishing an official state…

It’s time to put the ‘art’ back in Christian art
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It’s time to put the ‘art’ back in Christian art

I was driving home from work flipping through radio stations when I stumbled upon Praise 106.5, the local Christian radio station here in B.C. Instead of flipping the channel off like I frequently do, I decided to give the station a chance. Much to my disappointment, my scepticism was justified as a boring pop-rock song…

Getting into some holy trouble
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Getting into some holy trouble

When it comes to books addressing the themes of home and homelessness, it is not surprising that memoir seems to be a pervasive genre. Home is, after all, rooted in story. The memories of significant events, foundational relationships, celebrations, the feel of the familial abode, the landscape of our youth, conjure up the feelings of…

Escaping fame’s false promises
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Escaping fame’s false promises

To prepare for Reign of Christ Sunday – a day to celebrate Jesus’ universal sovereignty – my Bible study group focused on Luke 23:33-45. Jesus’ crucifixion was a heavy passage to ponder at this time in the church year, on the cusp of Advent’s slow lean into the light of his birth. And yet, what…

Growing Old Gracefully
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Growing Old Gracefully

At the risk of being charged with blasphemy, let me say that for more than 50 years I was bored silly watching major league baseball on television. What did my dad see in a Milwaukee Brewer pawing the ground in the batters’ box, or the pitcher wiping his forehead, palming a baseball and occasionally scratching…