Whether a Christian enjoys high church, low church, or something in between, aesthetics in the Church are not about any one individual person and their particular tastes. Aesthetics are, fundamentally, not a matter of legalism, but of edification—that the Gospel of Christ might be preached and taught to all peoples, unhindered by its medium.
Let us live by walking with Jesus, so that our Neo-Pagan neighbors, the witch, and frankly a lot of us Christians, can put down our crystals, our superstitions, our vision boards, and our bound sage in order to live out a liturgy of life, with rituals, practices, and behaviors that reflect who we are as followers of Christ.
As Jesus hung on the cross there would be no last second escape. No Greek goddess would swoop in to rescue him. He suffered alone. And yet even in that suffering he declared his victory on the spiritual battlefield to be your victory.

All Articles

Jesus does not give as the world gives. With Jesus, everything is guaranteed and has been finished from the start.
The book, Paul and the Resurrection: Testing the Apostolic Testimony, by Josh Pagán, has just been released by 1517 Publishing. In this innovative, interdisciplinary study, Pagán combines the analytic tools of history and philosophy to explore and evaluate competing explanations of Paul's belief in the Resurrection of Jesus. In this article, he introduces us to his book, which is available now on Amazon (see link at close of article).
In the vortex of uncertainty and upheaval, what’s the best thing we can do? Seize the ordinary.
The newest book from 1517 Publishing, Paul and the Resurrection: Testing the Apostolic Testimony, was released this week. In this article, we asked the book's author, Joshua Pagán, to answer a series of questions about the book, so we could better understand his approach, his arguments, and how his book helps us better understand the resurrection of Jesus as the foundational confession of the church.
The implications were clear: Jesus’ death destroyed the things that distinguished people as educated or uneducated, rich or poor, free or enslaved, black or white, pious or godless.
It would do us well to expand what we mean when we say catechesis and consequently broaden the reach of theological education into daily life.
Neither the disciples nor Paul expected a resurrected Messiah, so something has to account for their dramatic transition from faithless to fearless in the days/years following Jesus’ crucifixion.
Your faith is not dependent on whether or not you suffer well. Your faith is dependent on the fact that Christ did.
The following is an excerpt from "Finding Christ in the Straw" written by Robert M. Hiller (1517 Publishing, 2020).
We confuse salvation and vocation in our quest to determine who is in control of our salvation.
Jonathan saw in David a reflection of who he himself was. This recognition pulled him outside himself and bound him to another.
The following is an excerpt from “Faithless to Fearless” written by David Andersen (1517 Publishing, 2019).