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A Christmas Party Conciliar Post Style
This last weekend, a portion of the Conciliar Post team gathered together for food, drink, and conversation. Those in attendance represented the Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, Former Reformed Baptists who are now catechumens in the Orthodox Church (it was predestined), and the Searching perspectives. It was, indeed, a Christmas party Conciliar Post style. Amid the amicable jokes, merlot, and chit-chat, Jacob Prahlow related his personal search for a Christian Tradition; a search that began 20-something years ago with

Why Professor Gushee is Wrong About How to Handle Same-Sex Marriage
Guest Author Deion Kathawa responds to Professor David P. Gushee’s recent article in the Washington Post and offers a critique of evangelical positions in favor of Same-Sex Marriage.

On Torture
This is not the piece I wanted to produce the same week I celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Yet, as Martin Luther King Jr. said in his 1967 speech at Riverside Church, I must address the recent U.S. Senate report on state-directed torture “because my conscience leaves me no other choice.”1 The barbaric and dehumanizing treatment of suspects in U.S. custody is one of the great moral issues of our generation, yet despite the

Christmas is About the Cross
The coming of Christ, the Reformed understand, is one part in the eternal plan of God to reconcile his chosen people to himself. The Incarnation, rather than being a stand-alone celebration, proceeds from an eternal will that precedes it, and results in a death that reconciles.

Weekly Reads (December 20)
Hello, readers! This week Conciliar Post underwent a redesign! If you haven’t already, please browse around our site to see some of the new changes. Here is a round-up of different religion, theology, and current events articles from our own authors and across the internet. The following articles do not necessarily reflect the views or mission of Conciliar Post. These articles have been selected based on their prevalence across popular blogs and social media and their

If God Is with Us, Why Are We Lonely?
“Our two little granddaughters have a sense of community which many adults have lost; people have developed less a sense of community than a loneliness which they attempt to assuage by being with other people constantly, and on a superficial level only…The loneliness, the namelessness of cocktail-party relationships surround us. We meet, but even when we kiss we do not touch. We avoid the responsibility of community.”1 —Madeleine L’Engle There is

Becoming Whoville
One of my favorite holiday traditions will always be watching the classic Christmas specials with my daughters: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Mickey’s Christmas Carol, and especially Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the animated version, not the Jim Carrey flick). Dr. Seuss’s holiday classic offers perhaps the best message for Christian children during the Nativity season. Most are familiar with the story of the wicked Grinch whose heart was bitter

“He Never Repaid Me In Like Kind”
In A Little Exercise For Young Theologians, Helmut Thielicke warns beginning theology students against abusing their new-found knowledge. This warning was prompted by the Church, which was “concerned very rightly for our spiritual health.”1 The concern Thielicke references highlights the nature of the Church. The Church is not just a collection of people but, in some sense, a distinct organism. At least this is the picture Paul provides when he states that God “gave the