Christ and Culture

Rebecca Protten and the First Black Protestant Church in the Americas When seven-year-old Rebecca Protten was kidnapped from her family home in Antigua, she couldn’t possibly imagine that her new life in the island of St. Thomas, a Danish sugar colony in the West Indies, would become a catalyst for...

Fabiola and Her Radical Charity On a Saturday before Easter, most likely in AD 393, Fabiola stood outside the full church of Saint John Lateran in Rome. She was dressed in sackcloth, with her hair disheveled, her unwashed cheeks streaming with tears. It was a surprising sight. In the early church,...

Robert Jermain Thomas – First Protestant Martyr in Korea Today, when Christians from Korea travel to Great Britain, they often make a point of visiting Hanover, south Wales, where Robert Jermain Thomas spent his childhood. Some even venture out to the small town of Rhayader, where he was born in...

Rosa Young – Committed to Serve At the turn of the twentieth century, many civil rights advocates fought to create better communities and lives for Black Americans. They did it mostly through politics, essays, and discussions. Rosa Young – a name still largely unknown– did it through education, the...

Bo Giertz – True Pastor and Insightful Writer In 1927, Bo Harald Giertz had an audience with Queen Victoria of Sweden, who had been a patient of his father Knut. Knowing that Bo was studying theology, and that he was a top student, she asked if he wanted to become a professor. He replied he just...

“Sticks and stones make break my bones, but words can never hurt me”. Living in a hyper-critical age, we all know this truism to be false. Words do hurt. In our fallenness, criticism comes all too naturally. It feels so good, so right. (“I know better than that person!” “I need to say this in order...

Be Hospitable! In Romans 12:13, Paul says, “seek to show hospitality.” When we think of the “one-another” commands of Scripture, certainly the idea of hospitality comes to mind. The word itself comes from the Latin hospes , meaning guest, visitor, or stranger. Sometimes talks and books on this...

Ernst Lohmeyer A few of us might have seen the name Ernst Lohmeyer listed among those who resisted the Nazi regime. Scholars remember him for his studies on the Lord’s Prayer and Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, which confirmed the early existence of the doctrine of Christ’s divinity. Most people...

I enjoy good children’s books, and not just to read to my children, but because they can be beautiful, fun, and moving. Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss is one of my favorites. It contains a page halfway through that is dedicated to the Waiting Place, drawn in dreary shades of grey, blue, and...

The Korean Revival and Following Persecution The Japanese victory in the 1904-1904 Russo-Japanese War and the consequent annexation of Korea to Japan caused a flurry of patriotic sentiments among Koreans. By that time, Christianity had made great strides into the country, and its leaders were known...