Scottish lenses, languages and landscapes: Engaging evangelicals with environmentalism

This article points out the dissonance between young people’s environmental and justice concerns, and the lack of sufficient interest in the ecological aspects of Christian witness in Scottish evangelical circles. Reminding us that language matters enormously – as illustrated by the tensions even around the terminology used to describe the current ecological challenge – it explores the anthropological lens through which evangelicals tend to view the created world, and suggests a pragmatic response in terms of the kind of images and language that would naturally speak and relate to evangelical believers.

Matters of Birth and Death in the Russian Orthodox Church and Ecumenical Patriarchate's Social Documents

In a span of twenty years, two of the autocephalous churches of the Orthodox Christian world released documents addressing the social realities of contemporary life: the Russian Orthodox Church's Basis of the Social Concept (2000) and the Ecumenical Patriarch's For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church (2020). This article offers a side-by-side comparison and analysis of the documents’ treatments of matters of birth and death, including childbirth, abortion, miscarriage, end-of-life care, euthanasia, suicide, and a vision of a good death. Detailed comparison demonstrates remarkable accord between the two churches on many of these matters. Differences of omission and emphasis appear to be indicative of contrasting demographic and historical situations, with the exception of one, notable divergence between the churches, all of which are discussed. The striking degree and depth of consonance between the documents offers potential for cooperation and unity as the two churches negotiate their conflicts while also seeking to guide their flocks and offer Orthodox Christian witness in an increasingly desacralized world.

A Latin Pictorial Witness to Tatian’s Diatessaron

This study explores the content correlation of two important and well-known early gospel harmonies for the first time – a visual harmony and a textual harmony – that originated within the Roman Empire in the Latin west and the Syriac east some 400 years apart during Late Antiquity. Based on in-depth comparative analyses summarized in tables and diagrams, it identifies four distinctly diatessaronic patterns in the painting that do not accord with any one of the canonical gospels, nor any other possible combination of them, but follow instead the unique construction of the Diatessaron as documented by its Arabic Christian witness. In light of contemporaneous Latin and Syriac evidence about the liturgical rites of pedilavium and eucharist during the Holy Week, this study also contextualizes the choice of the focal vignettes in the painting.

Criticism and Legitimacy of “Cultural Marxism”: Implications for Christian Witness in the Postmodern World

Recently, there has been a good deal of controversy regarding the use and definition of the expression “cultural Marxism.” Some consider it to be simply conspiracy theorists’ term for their fantasies; others consider it the best descriptor of the confusion of our current social discourse. This article critically evaluates the construction of “cultural Marxism,” especially its Marxist-postmodern connection. It concludes that while the expression is relatively improper, it is difficult to deny the existence of a Marxist cultural turn and its impact on the historical development of our society. KEYWORDS: Marxism, postmodernism, cultural Marxism, apologetics, Jordan Peterson, cultural turn