The Wittenberg Door

Membership in Grace: Reflecting on Dobbs and Gifts

Perhaps activism needs such determined gentleness, illustrated in the pro-life students’ hours of prayer and the work of adoption agencies like my grandmother’s. Activism must be framed by an understanding of common grace, shared depravity, and our implications with each other: our membership, which is “the way we are.”

Do Protestants Have a “Low” Aesthetic?

The question, of course, is not whether some Protestant individuals have under-developed aesthetic sensibilities; the question is whether Protestant principles logically or consistently contribute to an under-developed aesthetic sensibility.

A Spacious Life

In an excerpt from her book The Spacious Life, Ashley Hales redefines limits as an expression of love and a doorway into rest.

Dear Mom: A Letter on Time

Learning from Wallace Stegner, Doug Sikkema considers the timeless blessings of his childhood in a letter to his mother.

Reading with Our Hearts: A Review of Enjoying The Bible

Enjoying the Bible is a book about beholding the deep riches of beauty in Scripture and allowing its literary elements to shape our humanity. A literary approach to Scripture teaches our students how to love rather than merely what to think.

A Book to Guide the Church: The 1662 Book of Common...

The IE is essentially the 1662 BCP of old, but unlike the Cambridge edition it is not just that and nothing more—it is the 1662 judiciously tweaked and supplemented in a way calculated to attract both newcomers to the BCP and long-time Anglicans.

Grail and Anti-Grail Quests

"After all, if you are too small to do anything, what need is there to stir!”

Paul Kingsnorth and the Truer Path of Worship

A short review cannot do justice to the range of reasons visitors to the Porch should read Kingsnorth’s three novels, so I’ll begin simply by saying: Read them. These are thought-provoking, challenging, and linguistically creative novels.

Taborian Cultural Competence

How do you measure the beauty, fittingness, and purposefulness of Hewitt, his family, farm, and community? I hope no one tries to innovate an inventory to do it.

My Mask, My Choice

Unfortunately, much of what is currently driving the discussion is not reason nor compassion but anger.