Pursuing Veritas

Reflections by Jacob J. Prahlow
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  • Poems, Protest, and a Dream

    Of the various perspectives within the confines of post-Reformation Church history, perhaps none is more interesting than the writings of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. A Catholic writer (and later a Catholic nun) living in the New World during the 15th century (xxiv), Sor Juana’s theological perspective exhibits the increasingly uneasy place of traditional…

  • ECA: Epistle of Polycarp

    This post is part of our ongoing series on Early Christian Authority. Polycarp of Smyrna remains one of the best attested figures of the early Christian Church. As bishop of Smyrna (cx. Rev. 2.8), recipient of a letter from the Ignatius of Antioch, and a martyr of the church, Polycarp stands apart as an exceptional…

  • What About People Who Died Before the Incarnation?

    A while back, a friend wrote me and asked, “How do you justify [and explain] the people who died before Christ came [i.e., Abraham, Moses, David]?” This struck me as an important and insightful question. In our rush to talk about and theologize heaven and hell, we often pay little attention to people who would…

  • Book Review: Is College Worth It? (Bennett)

    Half of the college graduates in 2010-11 were unemployed or dramatically underemployed in 2013. Student loan debt is mounting for thousands of people across the country. More people are finding it difficult to get a well paying job with only a bachelors degree. Many people know that there are some problems with the American Higher…

  • Recommended Reading: November 1-7

    If you only read one article this week, check out J. R. R. Tolkien’s Vision of Just War by Jay Wesley Richards and Jonathan Witt. If you have time to engage some other readings, check out the selection below. And, as always, if you think there’s something else I should be reading, please let me…

  • Sit, Walk, Stand

    Watchman Nee was one of the most influential leaders and thinkers in the history of Chinese Christianity. It has been said that Nee’s writings and example, more than any other factor, have shaped the contemporary Chinese church. In his highly popular book, Sit, Walk, Stand, Nee offered an exegesis of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians…

  • ECA: Ignatius of Antioch

    This post is part of our ongoing series on Early Christian Authority. Ignatius of Antioch and the letters he wrote on way to his martyrdom in Rome have long fascinated those studying early Christianity. Killed around 117 CE by the Emperor Trajan, Ignaitus’s tale reads like a drama: the bishop of Antioch (one of the…

  • Life at the Bottom

    Very often (especially among us academic types) we tend to read a snippet of news here, a blog post there, and maybe have a conversation with a friend about a topic and, suddenly, our minds are made up about that topic. There’s nothing more to learn, to additional evidence to consider. This is especially true…

  • Thinking About Change

    Having just moved to a new city, a new apartment, and started a new job, the subject of change has been on my mind lately. Change is hard: the times when I’ve transitioned to a new environment, be it moving across the country or going off to school, have been some of the most challenging…

  • Book Review: The Church According to Paul (Thompson)

    The Christian church is facing a crisis. It is losing face, hemorrhaging influence in the public sphere of Western civilization, churches are declining in membership, and increasing swaths of people are not longer interested in what Christianity has to offer. This apparent decline is not a new trend to be sure—and stems, at least in…