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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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LentBy Joseph Mangina The word lenten, the Oxford English Dictionary tells me, is older than the word Lent. In Old English lenten was in fact a noun, and it meant simply “spring.” Later it became the favored term for the forty-day period of fasting and penitence between Ash Wednesday and Easter, symbolic of Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness after his baptism. Eventually the word got shortened and became Lent; and now (through... |
Wed, February 24, 2021 |
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Deep at the heart of everythingBy Ephraim Radner My wife Annette and I own several charcoal and wash drawings by a wonderful artist, Churchill Davenport. We acquired them when we were married in the late 1980’s. Davenport was a parishioner in the Brooklyn church where I worked, and had become involved in our experiment at having daily Morning Prayer in the church sanctuary at 7:30 a.m., joining with six or seven pilgrims, as it were, in the journey... |
Fri, February 19, 2021 |
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Taking a Stand against Slavery and against Racial EqualityBy Marion Taylor I was first introduced to renowned abolitionist, women’s rights activist, and feminist biblical commentator Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) at a birthday party held in her honor at Yale Divinity School. I encountered Stanton again when my research interests turned to recovering forgotten women interpreters of the Bible. I remember how excited I was the day I found her exposition of the Ten Commandments that was buried in her 1860 political... |
Tue, February 09, 2021 |
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Tips for dealing with pandemic anxietyBy Wanda Malcolm To say that COVID-19 has brought many unwanted challenges into our lives is a blindingly obvious statement. We are weary of the isolation and loneliness. Our worry about the future and the wellbeing of those who are most vulnerable to the virus is a relentlessly heavy burden. The losses are staggering. We struggle daily with the loss of choice about what we can... |
Fri, February 05, 2021 |
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CandlemasBy Catherine Sider-Hamilton Where I grew up, in southern Pennsylvania, Groundhog Day was a big thing. For weeks before February 2, the papers, the broadcasters asked: would the groundhog—who had a name, Punxatawny Phil, from Punxatawny, Penn.—see his shadow? Were we in for another six weeks of winter, or was Spring, and light and life, around the corner? (That was a question of course that only made sense in southern Pennsylvania, and in... |
Fri, January 29, 2021 |
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Remembering the First TST DirectorBy Alan L. Hayes C. Douglas Jay, the founding director of the Toronto School of Theology, died peacefully on January 1st, at the age of 95. When he accepted the challenge to be TST’s first director in 1969, neither he nor anyone else could know whether TST would ever be more than an interesting but passing ecumenical experiment. Probably few would have dared to hope that it would become one of the... |
Mon, January 18, 2021 |
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A New DayBy Stephen Andrews Have you ever seen so many people so anxious to put something behind them? “Good riddance!” we exclaim to a year that saw 80 million people infected by a lethal virus that was the cause of widespread unemployment, isolation, and unprecedented governmental largesse. “Don’t come back!” we holler to months of natural disaster, to fires in the west, and tropical storms in the east. “Never again!” we chant to reports... |
Tue, January 05, 2021 |
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The Voice of the Old TestamentBy Christopher Seitz One of my goals in college was to get the grades necessary to apply to a top law school. I happened to take a course in Old Testament and the Professor asked me to stay on and be a teaching assistant. In my junior year, he was preaching in Charlotte NC and had a heart attack (he was mid-sixties). I went to the funeral and afterward his widow asked me... |
Mon, December 14, 2020 |
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Why the Lives of Historical Black Women Preachers MatterBy Marion Taylor Early African American women dared to preach and call for personal and societal change. These heroes of faith inspire us and need to be remembered. We stand on their shoulders as we continue to battle over questions of gender, race, and biblical interpretation. African American abolitionist, moral reformer, and educator Maria W. Stewart (1803-1879) is one of those heroes. Stewart dared to heed God’s voice in calling for individual and... |
Mon, December 07, 2020 |
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People, Look East!By Catherine Sider Hamilton People, look east! The time is near Of the crowning of the year. Make your house fair as you are able Trim the hearth and set the table. People, look east and sing today Love, the guest, is on the way. (Common Praise, 91)
It has become my family’s favourite Advent carol. Every year we look forward to singing it; always we have to sing it on the first... |
Fri, November 27, 2020 |
