Saving People From the Fiery Pits of Hell? A Review of “The Very Worst Missionary”

Excerpt: As a Christian college student several decades ago, I knew without a doubt that the holiest, most sanctified majors on campus where those preparing their graduates for overseas missions. This probably explains the small twinges of guilt I felt when others gushed about their longing to serve God on the mission field. Nothing about that vocation seemed appealing to me, nor did the yearly short-term missions trips the college hosted, when vanloads of students travelled to Mexico or flew to other far-away locales to offer children a week of Vacation Bible School, or to build an outdoor baño

Raising Spiritual Kids in the Age of Instagram

Excerpt: The call came in to our harvest-yellow kitchen when I was fourteen. I stood at the breakfast bar with my family\u27s also-yellow phone pressed to me ear, winding and unwinding the twisted cord while listening to Tamara, my erstwhile friend. She wanted me to know I was nice enough, but that everyone in my ninth-grade class agreed I needed to get some new clothes already. And that I definitely needed to get a new hairstyle, because my short curls were really ugly (except she used an expletive in place of really )

Life Is Not a Pro/Con Proposition: A Review of Kassi Underwood’s “May Cause Love”

Excerpt: In many ways, contemporary abortion debates have managed to do just that: objectifying women who have abortions by politicizing their experiences. May Cause Love compellingly reveals that life doesn’t always follow ideology, as Adichie says, and that sometimes, when faced with a monumental decision, women need support, guidance, and a safe community who will listen closely, rather than judge harshly. Because every woman’s story about abortion has the power to change the world, if only we have the ears, and the heart, to listen

On Becoming a Family: Melanie\u27s Story of Benjamin\u27s Adoption, 2002

Excerpt: I became a mother in the back of a taxi cab. No sit-com cliché, this. The taxi was a late-model, jacked up Honda, its plush chairs bedecked by delicate white doilies. Traffic dared not impede my driver, a silently brooding young man who weaved between Cyclos and motorcycles freighted by fruit, vegetables, live chickens, entire families. I sat tensely in the backseat, holding my son, incredulously wondering into what I had just gotten myself

Book Review: Fat and Faithful: Learning to Love Our Bodies, Our Neighbors, and Ourselves

Excerpt: Patterson is the former president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, fired in May because of his misogynistic comments and mishandling of sexual abuse claims. He chose in his return to preaching last week to question the legitimacy of the #MeToo movement, and apparently thought the pulpit was the best place to body-shame women, in particular those who are fat. In a sermon during a Christian revival, Patterson described a woman who “filled the door,” made a joke about the baptistery and her weight, and said that she could play linebacker for an NFL team. The audience, there ostensibly to express their love for Jesus, laughed. Let that sink in: a pastor, let go from his job four months ago for his misogyny, chooses to body-shame a woman, and people laugh because, apparently, fat jokes are still funny in church and can lead people to the Lord

Kumataro Ito, Japanese Artist on Board the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Steamer Albatross During the Philippine Expedition, 1907–1910

Kumataro Ito produced hundreds of beautiful color paintings of fishes and invertebrates during and after the 1907-10 Philippine Expeditin of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries Steamer Albatross. The paintings are housed in the files of the Divisions of Fishes and Mollusks, United States National Museum of Natural History, and Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, D.C. Few of those paintings have been published in color, but many have been publishes in black and white. Two years after the expedition, Ito came to Washington, D.C., in 1912 for an extended period to render final paintings based on preliminary color sketches made during the expedition. He did not completly render all the sketches during his stay, probably because he was asked to produced a large number of black-and-white illustrations of Philippine fishes, and a few of North American fishes. Most of the black-and-white illustrations have been published. Few publications containing Ito's Philippine and North American illustrations have acknowledged him. The very little that is known about Ito's life is discussed, examples of his black-and-white and colored fish paintings are reproduced, and his previously unacknowledged illustrations in various publications are herein acknowledged. Another Japanese artist, Yasui, about whom almost nothing is known, joined the Albatross during Ito's second tour on board the ship. It appears, with few exceptions, that Yasui produced only preliminary color sketches of fishes, which, if rendered as final paintings, were done by Ito