Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Merriment Of Christmas, Leah Farish Esq.

College of Arts and Cultural Studies Faculty Research and Scholarship

Better than any greeting card or bright package was the news that Mary received that she was going to bear Jesus, the Savior. Her humble response—“Be it unto me according to Your Word”—is called “the Fiat,” or “may it be so.”

Then she ran off to share the news with her cousin Elizabeth. “Now follows,” says Calvin in his commentary on the gospel of Luke, “a remarkable and interesting song of the holy virgin….”

Ages Of Grace, Leah Farish Esq.

College of Arts and Cultural Studies Faculty Research and Scholarship

Do you ever wonder about our sisters in Christ who lived in other ages–and about what we have in common with them? Our church decided to offer a women’s retreat with the title “Ages of Grace,” in which the teaching was by various characters who came to us with costume and music of their era.

The first talk began as the retreatants were settled on a Friday evening at a retreat lodge about 10 miles from our church. Candles were lit, and some recorded music suggesting the chants of the early church ushered in one of our members, wearing a …

A Woman’S Response To The Benedict Option, Leah Farish Esq.

College of Arts and Cultural Studies Faculty Research and Scholarship

Columnist Rod Dreher has written The Benedict Option to stimulate Christians to consider how evangelism and community can be lived out in 21^st-century America. He assumes the dominant culture is hostile to Christianity and pernicious to it, especially to children, and is going to become more so. Thus he harks back to the example of St. Benedict, who wrote his Rule of monastic life in about 530 A.D. as he withdrew from the corruption of Rome on one side and the pagan hordes on the other.

Dreher said in a recent interview that “This is not our culture …

A Commission Or A Commandment? Responding To (Some) Women’S March: The Intersection Of Feminism, Religious Freedom, And The Pro-Life Movement, Leah Farish Esq.

College of Arts and Cultural Studies Faculty Research and Scholarship

The women’s marches on January 21 held in Washington, D.C., and many other places were characterized by loud and scalding rhetoric, often seething with vitriol such as Madonna’s thoughts about bombing the White House and signs about private parts biting other people. But perhaps more troubling was the organizers’ refusal to include pro-life voices in the chorus. True, under Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., the organizers are legally entitled to shape their message by limiting participants. Yet, there are three ethical problems with that exclusion. These problems exist because the female marchers are …

"How Do You Survive Your Life With Christ?" Moroccan Christians Speak, Leah Farish Esq.

College of Arts and Cultural Studies Faculty Research and Scholarship

For the approximately 8,000 Christians living in Muslim-majority Morocco, restrictions on religious freedom are not as severe as in many other Muslim cultures, but are still an everyday source of instability, fear, and alienation. In recent interviews summarized below, Moroccan Christians spoke out about how this persecution severely limits not only their right to worship freely and openly, but also their ability to engage in economic activity and contribute to the social flourishing of their communities.

The First Amendment’S Religion Clauses: The Calvinist Document That Interprets Them Both, Leah Farish Esq.

College of Arts and Cultural Studies Faculty Research and Scholarship

This paper suggests that the Westminster Confession of Faith's provisions about church and state, revised in Philadelphia at the start of the Constitution's ratifying convention, furnished much of the syntax and vocabulary for the First Amendment's religion clauses. Recognizing the cultural links between the new American government and the Presbyterian Church, the author argues that it was natural for the founders to look to how the new Westminster Confession situated church and state. The author argues that Fisher Ames's proposed wording for the First Amendment won immediate adoption because it resonated with the Confession, standing as it did in that …