by Peter S. Perry

Exploring the reality of Christmas time’s complexities, the season’s mixed emotions are contextualized in God’s eternal landscape. Readers will see the strength of rejoicing as an action rather than a reactionary feeling as it anchors us in the joy of Christ even as the world faces ongoing tragedies.

by C.H.E. Sadaphal

Rejoicing has an inherently reverent nature. With the use of a single verse, Psalm 97:1, we are taught that rejoicing acknowledges the King, the extent of the King’s sovereignty, the means by which the King rules, and the guarantees enjoyed by those in the Kingdom.

by Christine Stopka

A personal and vulnerable narrative that reveals the difficulties of the wilderness that life often is. The essay gives readers an alternative to simply reacting to the hopelessness of the wilderness by rejoicing. This piece’s approach to rejoicing is unlike the typical approaches this season displays. It is a quiet, careful, and measured approach to seeing how God works in our dark places to reveal the light.

by Douglas S. Stivison

The Protestant Reformation not only changed forever the course of Christian belief and worship, it also elevated respect for individual conscience and honest inquiry. To preach faithfully in a contemporary Protestant pulpit demands that we help our parishioners appreciate the priceless and revolutionary concept that is the foundation of Reformed worship – freedom of conscience.

by Neal D. Presa

The subversive beauty that lurks in the human story, which gives witness to the power of the hidden Christ, who is real in our speaking and in our living can be seen in comparing the works of Shūsaku Endō, Makoto Fujimura, and Martin Scorsese.

by John W. Herbst

We live in an age of distrust, far from Isaiah’s ideal. Individually and collectively, people seek security. The church needs to promote Isaiah’s solutions to local and global disharmony: concentration on God’s ways and values, and the promotion of justice for all people, everywhere. It is only in knowledge and justice that our society will experience true shalom.

by Albrecht Classen

Both Christine and St. Francis are deeply insightful, timeless, spiritual, and illuminating philosophers on peace and its universal meaning. We need only little translation to make both their teachings relevant today. The goals and ideas have not changed, but only the material and political framework.

by Jonathan A. Seitz

This personal theological essay reflects on the centennial of World War 1, asking how we make sense of a century that was horrifically violent even as the world is perhaps becoming less violent. It uses Luke 21 (which is sometimes used by missionaries) to gain perspective on the terror and promise of our times.

by Amy K Bell Finiki

To create a peaceable kingdom in 2017, we need to hold one another accountable. We need to ask the hard questions and we need to keep being persistent. The only way to live peaceably is to begin to understand our discomforts, especially those with other people. We can heal one another through our stories and eventually, no one will think twice when a group of young people of all colors come together to learn from one another.

by Janet E. Blair

The foundation of the ESL ministry of the Morning Star Fellowship in the Korean immigrant community in northern New Jersey is not English language teaching with a lopsided power differential, but mutual teaching and learning, sharing of Biblical insights and cultural experience, and brotherly and sisterly love. This new faith community is living out the peaceable kingdom as the body of Christ now rather than passively awaiting the not yet.

by Jerry Reisig

As we are daily inundated with images of war, we begin to wonder what an image of peace would look like. George Fox, an early Friend (Quaker), spoke of the need to become “patterns and examples” which reflect the God within. Friends have long looked to the Epistle of James for guidance in becoming perfect in their walks, warning of false images and the desires. Friends are called to become images of peace from God within, so that others might come to see the God within themselves.

by Nancy Fields

For a while, I struggled to find grace in the words, “They will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother.” However, as I listen to the politics of the day, I am convinced of the wisdom of those words. My challenge has been to put the words of rhetoric, debate, and argument in their rightful places!