I tend to be cautious about movies produced and directed by their stars. Turning the camera on oneself begets temptations to egotism that few can completely resist. The worst of such films fetishize their leading men, and even the best, like Braveheart, feel a bit top-heavy. Mel Gibson might have be
11.23.2009| Books and Arts, Volume 5, Issue 1 | Jim Shirey
1 CommentAmerica is assumed to be different. We are different because Christianity is thought still to thrive in America. Whereas Christianity is allegedly dying in Europe, it seems alive and well in America. That Christianity still seems a vital faith in America confirms for many the contention that there i
11.23.2009| Features, Volume 5, Issue 1 | Stanley Hauerwas
No CommentsEditor's Note What is it Good For? I was seven when I first saw war. It was 1995, and NATO had recently entered Bosnia, joining a conflict marked by incredibly brazen war crimes, including ethnic cleansing and brutal mass rape. As the conflict raged on that September, I watched from the s
11.20.2009| Editor's Note, Volume 5, Issue 1 | Samir Paul
No CommentsSamir Paul, Harvard Let us reframe the question: Do we take the hope of Christ seriously enough actually to trust in it? Nonviolence is a consequence of hearing the glad tidings of the Gospel. It follows from obedience to the messiah who would rather die than take up the sword of revolutionary
11.20.2009| The Dispatch, Volume 5, Issue 1 | Samir Paul
No CommentsCourage and cruelty, honor and horror, miraculous escapes and damning coincidences are the stuff of film and novel, but also — at singular moments of history, for some few people — the stuff of life. In the wild days of World War II, a mild-mannered young German pastor, a theologian of some note
11.20.2009| Opinions, Volume 5, Issue 1 | Anne L. Goetz
No CommentsFor too long, people have interpreted Jesus’ teachings of peacemaking practices as Platonic ideals, high and beautiful, but not practical in real life. But when Jesus taught the leaders in Jerusalem that they needed to practice peacemaking or the temple would be destroyed, he was talking realistic
11.20.2009| Opinions, Volume 5, Issue 1 | Glen Stassen
No CommentsWe shouldn’t be surprised that the early church struggled with the morality of war. Protestants, like myself, too often assume that the return to the sources demanded by Renaissance humanists and the European reformers necessarily renders earlier better, or at least simpler. It is my contention th
11.20.2009| Opinions, Volume 5, Issue 1 | Andrew Forsyth
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