Recently, I took a summer course on the intersection of finance and stewardship. I did all the readings and decided to share some things I learned there. The first book assigned was Jeff Manion’s Satisfied: Discovering Contentment in a World of Consumption. In a nutshell, the lesson I learned can be summarized in a few words… Christians ought to emphasize the necessity for all to give – not just the affluent since giving itself constitutes a spiritual practice that can shape our spirit. In light of Jeff Manion’s book, especially Chapter 13 titled “The Power of Sharing,” I believe the …

One important principle in the Reformed tradition of the Christian faith is the emphasis on the community in the development of a person’s vocation. Community is important because it helps people to flourish. Without a community, individuals will not be able to experience God’s purposes in their totality. The individual and his/her community are complementary. One needs the other. With this notion of community, the Reformed tradition has usually read the New Testament highlighting the organic character of the church, something which it serves as a framework for Reformed thinking about the nature of Christian calling and work in human …

The Greeks’ attitude towards work in general terms was mainly negative. Because work seems to belong to the order of necessity, the Greeks associated it with animal nature. That is, work was understood in an instrumental sense where human beings had to work to live and satisfy their daily needs. This, in part, led the Greeks to overemphasize the contemplative life, a product of thinking and reflection, instead of labor work. Contemplative life, then, would be superior to the active life because it would allow human beings to achieve happiness and because it is precisely reason that distinguishes us from …

In Part I and II of René Girard’s I see Satan Fall Like a Lightning, René Girard, a French Christian philosopher, offers a sociological and philosophical perspective on the atonement as understood in the Christian tradition emphasizing the similarities between the mythological and the biblical of the Gospels. For him the way in which mythology and the Gospels characterize their victims is noteworthy. In this respect, Girard introduces the concept of scapegoats which are “innocent targets of a senseless collective transference that is mimetic and mechanical.” (p. 1) In other words, the scapegoat is a member of a community who is …

James Bratt’s following words could summarize one of the goals Abraham Kuyper achieved as a Christian thinker. Kuyper “upgrade[d] Calvinism from an old dogma to an active life, to put Modernist methods to orthodox ends, and to redefine the church to make it fit, and challenge, the contemporary world” (p. 42). I concur. However, how did Kuyper do it in theoretical terms? In trying to answer the former question, I will look to another Bratt’s work on Kuyper. One of the issues that emerges from the chapters “Modernism” and “Conservatism & Orthodoxy” in James Bratt’s Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader is …

By exploring the implications of Augustine’s doctrine of sin, Christian theologian Jesse Couenhoven analyzes the link between the doctrine of original sin and sexism. He argues that sexism can be understood as a form or outworking of original sin. His point of departure is the existence of common elements between Augustine’s view of sin and the perspectives of many feminist scholars. One of those elements is the nature of sin/responsibility.  Original Sin and the Criticism Made by Feminist Scholars A general criticism made by feminist scholars (for instance, Valerie Saiving) is that the Christian tradition has paid nothing or little …