Doxology
By Foy Valentine

• Whither the Center for Christian Ethics?
• What's Up for Christian Ethics Today?

"To everything thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven." So Solomon said. And he was right. 
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“Lost in Wonder, Love, and Praise”: The Witness of the Wesleys 
By Ralph C. Wood

• I. The Wesleyan Revival 
• II. Orthodoxy: Right-Believing Wonder 
• III. Orthopraxy: Right-Acting Love
• IV. Orthopathy: Praiseworthy Feeling 
• V. Conclusion

Occasions such as these are occasions for remembrance and thanksgiving. When we recall benefactors such as the Carleton and Willson families, we are made grateful that they have given so generously to a university like McMurry. And when the whole academic community is gathered--trustees and administrators, faculty and students--it is good to remember the tradition that has been handed down from the past. When we use the word "tradition," we mustn't think of something stuffy and old-fashioned and oppressive. Rather we should think of tradition as Jaroslav Pelikan and G. K. Chesterton define it. Pelikan calls tradition "the living faith of the dead." "Traditionalism," he adds by way of warning, "is the dead faith of the living."   
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Epiphanies
By Argye Hillis

There have been two epiphanies in my life, when I really felt like God was speaking clearly to me. I didn't physically hear or see anything, but both times the content of the message was surprisingly clear. The first time it happened was at Girls Auxiliary camp in 1945. The minister was giving a strong emotional plea for people to dedicate their lives to be full-time Christian workers. I had always planned on being a missionary, anyway, so I really expected a call. I felt NOTHING.

“Beg him,” the speaker called to us. “Say Lord, please call me to be a missionary! Call me to be a music minister. Whatever it is, I’m ready!” Continued

The Shape of Justice
By Charles Wellborn

What is justice?

At first glance that appears to be a simple question. Many people would answer, “Justice is fairness,” and be satisfied. Yet the distillation of the essence of justice and the perplexing problem of determining what constitutes "fairness" in real-life situations have occupied the attention of many of the world's best legal, philosophic, and religious minds for centuries. From Plato and Aristotle in the ancient Greek world through Thomas Aquinas in the medieval period to modern legal scholars such as John Rawls, the meaning of justice has been endlessly debated.

In a recent issue of this journal (October, 1999) Dr. Ruth Ann Foster of the Truett Seminary at Baylor University gave us a perceptive delineation of “Biblical Justice.” She rightly emphasized the partiality of that justice and its inherent bias toward the marginalized and oppressed individuals in society. The inbuilt final purpose of Biblical justice is the redemption of human beings, body and soul. Forgiveness, mercy, and compassion are seen as powerful forces in the redemptive process,
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Moses and the Founders
By Ross Coggins

Thank God for Charlton Heston! Whenever I turn on my television lately I find his ruggedly handsome image and his Moses-down-from-the-mountain voice exhorting us to reject the counsel of our lying leaders who would take away our guns or force us to register them. His logic is irresistible--especially when he intones the clincher: What would the founders think?

The appeal to the founders is long overdue. Just as our fundamentalist Christian friends insist on biblical literalism, we should insist that our politics be guided by the precepts of the nation's founders. When they guaranteed constitutionally the right to bear arms, they rebutted every argument for gun controls. Never mind that they defined this right in terms of “a well­ regulated militia” or that conditions in colonial America were different. Our right to carry a gun is forever set in concrete. Every time we have forsaken the founders' clear guidance, disaster has resulted. Continue

The Tower
By Hal Haralson

The Tower at the University of Texas was made infamous by Charles Whitman's sniping.

This Tower is orange when UT wins and the lights say: “Number One” when the Longhorns are on top.

The Tower attracts suicides like the San Francisco Bridge.

I looked at the afternoon Austin American-Statesman headline: UT Employee Plunges to Death from the Tower. Then I saw the name and felt failure and anger. “Douglas Miller, age 25 . . . plunged 29 stories today.”

I had met Douglas Miller (not his real name) two years earlier. 
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Missing Charitable Choices

Brian’s Story
By Roger Lovette

The wedding invitation I held in my hand intrigued me. Bryan was marrying Rachel. I began to smile as the wheels of memory started turning.

In 1986 this groom-to-be was then twelve years old. He became very sick one day and was rushed to the hospital. After a series a tests it was discovered that Brian was in renal failure. His family was called in because he was gravely ill. Further tests revealed that Brian was suffering from acute leukemia. 
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Knowing Jesus in the Breaking of Bread (Luke 24:30-35) 
By W. Clyde Tilley

Strange it is that they would not have recognized him-these two people who walked together on the road to Emmaus. For two days they had thought of little else. They spoke painfully of him as they walked. Their hearts bled for his loss. Then he joined them on the road. He conversed with them and they heard his voice. He ministered to their grief as he interpreted the scriptures. They saw him as he walked and extended him an invitation to be their guest. He accepted their hospitality--and still they did not know him.

Stranger still it is that they should come to know him in this particular way: He broke bread and they knew him. What an astounding source of revelation! More articulate than the words he had spoken was his breaking of bread. More vivid than his countenance was his breaking of bread. More revealing than the gait of his walk, the inflection of his voice, and the familiarity of his manner was his breaking of bread. More penetrating than the scriptures he expounded was his breaking of bread. 
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How I Have Changed.
"Reflections on Thirty Years of Theology"
Edited by Jurgen Moltmann
Trinity Press International
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1997

A Book Review
By Darold H. Morgan

To say this is a fascinating book is a distinct understatement. It is almost one of a kind. Coming out of the debacle of World War II is a generation of exceptionally brilliant men and women who turned to Christian theology almost as a last hope from the nihilism and atheistic existentialism of that era. Most of these individuals are German or Swiss. Protestants and Catholics both are represented. 
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The Parable of the Blue Reflector
By Nancy K. Ferrell

For days after this lesson on blue reflectors from my four year old teacher, I saw blue reflectors everywhere. I have driven the streets of Dallas since 1940. I had never noticed the blue reflectors, but there they were marking the locations of fire hydrants day or night. There are at least two lessons to be learned from the Parable of the Blue Reflector©[i]: one, always be open to learning no matter the age of your teacher ("The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. "[ii] Isaiah 11:6) and two, once our awareness is raised, we see blue reflectors where we saw none before ("For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!" Mark 4:22-23). For now, I want to focus on the second lesson. 
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Priest and Prophet: The Challenge of Ministry
By Jimmy R. Allen

• The Priestly Privilege of the Minister 
• The Priestly Responsibility of the Minister 
• The Prophetic Responsibility of the Minister

I was pleased at the response when I inquired about the basic mission of the James and Carolyn McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University. I was told that from the beginning the focus has been on equipping students to be ministers in local congregations. It is a worthy mission and greatly needed in our confused ecclesiastical world. The role of minister has been so ill-defined and so over-defined that ministers today are in danger of missing the essence of our call from God. We neglect the fact that following the family, as God's first institution, the fellowship of believers is God's primary institutional means of accomplishing his work on earth.

In our day of job descriptions, mission statements, and management manuals, it is frustrating to some that a minister's task is still quite difficult to define... 
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The New Dualism Public verses Private Life 
By Kevin J Schriver

Within the American mind-set, there are few privileges more greatly esteemed than the "right to privacy." As set forth in our Bill of Rights, the right to privacy is the guarantee for all Americans guaranteeing that government will not intrude unduly in an individual's private life. While technically the Fourth Amendment centers on search and seizure, it also encompasses a vast domain of privacy issues, including the behavior of the individual. It is at this point that morality and legal issues become entangled, thus issuing in the debate about public life and behavior and private life and behavior.

Consider the matter of people trying to separate their private lives from their public lives.
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A Plea for Orthodoxy in Action
By Ralph Lynn

At the moment, it seems that we are living through still another of our periodic "returns to religion."

From history and from seventy years of adult observation, I must say that they all have something in common. They emphasize evangelism and the growth of church membership but they demand no change in the philosophy, or understanding of the promoters nor, in any basic way, in our society.

Just after World War II we lived through one of these religious spasms. Tens of thousands of military people were returning to civilian life, all desiring to savor once more their fond memories. All of us felt profound gratitude for the safe return of loved ones and for the defeat of Fascist barbarism. 
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