In 2003, a group of theologically minded graduate students collaborated to form the first online issue of The Other Journal. At the time, we observed an uncomfortable alliance between an overtly evangelical president and a religiously driven endorsement of American exceptionalism. We saw that in the wake of 9/11, we were on the verge of […]
Land is of central concern to the people of God. Indeed, the whole of the Hebrew scriptures would be nearly unintelligible were this theme removed. To inhabit a particular place and to identify with that place constitutes something of the basis of the Jewish way of life from which the Christian church emerged. Yet the […]
At the beginning of his essay “Contract and Birthright,” the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin revisits the story in Genesis where Esau sells his birthright to his brother Jacob for a bowl of stew. As Wolin sees it, Esau “bartered what was unique and irreplaceable for a material good for which there was a number of […]
Since the time of the early Greeks, Western thought has tended to downplay the importance of the body. By emphasizing the existence of an eternal realm of ideal forms above and beyond the material world, we have indirectly transformed the body into little more than a vessel for our true immortal souls. We may say […]
We live in a world shaped by capitalism, an economic model that (we’re told) provides the very best opportunity for economic and social mobility, the very best economic system to promote human flourishing. It’s a narrative the Western church has dogmatically adopted and, as a result, the good news of Christianity has become fused with […]
At its most basic level, the Christian life is about prayer. Prayer is the font of all theology and the mode of being that constitutes faith. And yet, no activity seems more elusive and, at times, vague. What do we mean by prayer? How do we practice it? Where have we described and practiced it wrongly? How does it […]
In the timely experiment that is Parish Collective, Paul Sparks and Tim Soerens discuss their attempt to reconnect congregations with both locality and one another in a fragmented and detached society, providing us with a unique vision of what it may mean to be church in the twenty-first century.
That pain, suffering, oppression, and violence occur in the world is all too obvious. To grasp that the destructive forces we face are evil is not so obvious. This is not because the effects of evil are merely illusions, but because to know something as evil, that is, to recognize it as a force in […]
As we move into the darkest season of the calendar year, daylight runs in short supply, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, where The Other Journal makes its home. By the time the winter solstice arrives, we’ll experience about eight and a half hours of daylight, with plenty of thick, low-hanging clouds to obscure our rare […]
