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

But these good works aren’t done under compulsion. They’re done freely. They aren’t done so that God will love us. They’re done because He loves us.
When we Christians shoehorn Creedal Christianity into any of these ideological positions we obscure the Gospel mingling it with the Law and strip the Good News of its catholicity.
Right now (and I would add, for quite some time) there has been a debate within Christianity about the whole issue of culture.
There was a TV show back in the ‘90s called “Dinosaurs” that I used to sneak into the living room at night to watch.
The following is adapted from Called to Defend written by Valerie Locklair (1517 Publishing, 2017).
As a bass player, when I listen to music, I listen for what the bassist is doing. But, when I listen to music in my 2004 Honda Civic I have a problem: only one of the four speakers works.
The following is an excerpt from A Path Strewn with Sinners: A Devotional Study of Mark’s Gospel and His Race to the Cross written by Wade Johnston (1517 Publishing, 2017).
The Confessions instead look forward and provide a critique of the world and of all my various religions and idolatries.
The only sea of tranquility that can unite God and man and bring brotherhood among us is found in the Word and sacraments.
Where once we confessed reliance only in ourselves and our own power, now we confess reliance on Christ alone. So, for our relationship before God, our confession of faith matters.
I don’t know if you’re like me or not, but ideas can kick around in my head in a big jumble for awhile and then, all of a sudden, something random makes all of the pieces come together.
The following is an excerpt from Martin Luther’s Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (1535), translated by Haroldo Camacho (1517 Publishing, 2018).