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The Wycliffe Blog - Vestigia Dei
Vestigia Dei – is a Latin term meaning “traces of God.” As a theological term it is associated with natural theology – that is, the view that there are vestiges of God within creation. We’ve chosen this term as the title of the Wycliffe College blog because our hope is that through these writings, readers might glimpse evidences for God as our writers interact with the wider world.
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Lessons from the Front Lines of the B.C. FloodsBy Wycliffe College Student Paul Richards The atmospheric river that came was truly an inundation. Torrential rain for days caused mudslides, rivers to swell and burst their banks, roads and bridges to dissolve into nothing, and waters suddenly rising to dangerous levels and consuming homes, farms, and land. As the news steadily poured in of this terrible disaster in my province, the nearby community of Abbotsford was the hardest hit. Overflowing tributaries from the mountains to... |
Mon, December 06, 2021 |
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Hybrids WeBy George Sumner I once said in a Wycliffe class that there were two types of people, either/ors and both/ ands, at which point a student interjected, “but Professor, I think I am both a both/and and an either/or,” which proved the point. It’s an interesting question for the College, which was built after all across the street from its sibling Trinity, today both Anglican and ecumenically evangelical, ministerial and doctoral, pastoral and... |
Mon, November 22, 2021 |
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What is “discipleship”?By John Bowen A friend told me she once preached about discipleship. After the service, a parishioner came up to her and said, irately, “I am not a disciple. I am a member.” Oh well, I guess it was better than no reaction at all, and certainly better than, “Lovely sermon.” Like mission and missional, disciple and discipleship can be irritating words. Does anyone understand them? And do we really need them? It... |
Mon, November 22, 2021 |
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Loneliness—it’s now built inBy David Kupp There’s a growing ache at the heart of many of our western societies. Its name is loneliness. And a stream of actors has been calling it out of late: psychologists, pastors, pandemistas, even politicians. Loneliness has emerged as the faithful companion to our grandparents’ rural migration from the land and the village, as we chose city, industry, specialization, and dwindling household sizes, while riding the cultural horses of dehumanizing technology... |
Mon, November 15, 2021 |
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On Being an ImmigrantBy Justin Stratis I am now beginning my fourteenth year as an immigrant. In 2008, my wife and I, along with our young son, moved from the USA to Scotland to pursue my PhD. In 2012, we moved from Scotland to the southwest of England so I could take up my first teaching post in a theological college (then with two more children in tow). And most recently, this past summer we moved... |
Fri, November 05, 2021 |
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How do you know when you’ve gone too far: Lessons from an American JezebelBy Marion Taylor Anne Hutchinson (ca. 1591-1643) was a courageous woman who fought for many of the freedoms we now take for granted. The published account of her trial for sedition and heresy—before the Massachusetts General Court when she was forty-six and pregnant with her sixteenth child—illustrates why she has been memorialized as “a martyr on behalf of lay [biblical] interpretation.”[1] It also explains why the Governor of... |
Thu, October 28, 2021 |
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Why I am not “a person of faith”By John Bowen I do not consider myself “a person of faith.” There, I said it. Are you shocked? Yes, I attend my parish church regularly. I say the creed without crossing my fingers. I renew my baptismal vows at least once a year. So what could it possibly mean to say I am not “a person of faith”? Well, consider the fact that these days we call people what they want to... |
Mon, October 25, 2021 |
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Body Politics: Christian Theological Reflections on VaccinationBy Joseph Mangina It never really occurred to me to not be vaccinated. On learning that effective vaccines against COVID-19 would soon be on the horizon, my initial reaction was: “Where can I sign up?” No doubt my eagerness can be explained in part by a sheer hunger for human connection, after months of lockdown existence. The lockdown had been taking its toll. I wanted to teach my students in person again, I... |
Tue, October 19, 2021 |
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The Difference between Truth and OpinionBy Stephen Chester
Sometimes incidents that are not very important in themselves can crystallize for us the importance of issues that are much more significant. That happened for me many years... |
Thu, October 14, 2021 |
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The vaccination question: a theologian reflects, part 1By Ephraim Radner This blog post is the first in a series, in which Wycliffe theology professors consider the COVID vaccination debate. In the following, Ephraim Radner, Professor of Historical Theology asks, “How did the issue of vaccination so divide the church?”
I am a conservative and traditionalist Christian. Yet during this Time of the Virus I seem to have ended up on opposite sides with many of those with whom I... |
Tue, October 05, 2021 |
