by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Dec 3, 2017 | Fostering Faith, Living the Liturgical Year
Happy New Year! Advent, the start of the Christian year, is upon us again. Rather than being a season for shopping and celebrating, Advent creates space for us confront the injustice, evil, and brokenness we see around us with the holy expectation of God’s coming....
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Feb 6, 2017 | Fostering Faith, Raising Christian Kids
Simeon was born on February 2nd, 2014 and died 40 minutes later. My friends were very excited for his birth—they had both lost a parent earlier in the year and were very much looking forward to something to celebrate. Five days before his birth, they received the...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Oct 27, 2016 | Fostering Faith, The Bible
I hate it when well-meaning people tell me that God has a plan for my life. Why do I hate it, you might ask? Because it is exactly what I’m afraid of… The idea that God has a plan for a person’s life is a notion that ought to strike fear into the heart of any sensible...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Mar 24, 2016 | Fostering Faith, The Christian Imagination
When I was younger, Good Friday inspired me. While I was thankful for Jesus’ sacrifice, I viewed it as the heroic act of an individual, independent human being—an adult choosing to give his life for others, which it was. And, such an act is worthy of the highest...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Feb 1, 2016 | Raising Christian Kids, Reading Well, The Bible, Uncategorized
A few nights ago, I was reading a popular children’s Bible with my kids. We read through the creation story describing how God made the light, separated the waters, formed the land, made the plants, animals, and finally made people. As we read, something troubled me...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Dec 21, 2015 | Living the Liturgical Year, The Christian Imagination
“Mama, it doesn’t feel like Christmas,” my five-year-old daughter declared while drinking hot chocolate on a steamy Sydney morning. “Why?” “Because we’re eating sweets and it’s hot…and we don’t have a Christmas tree.” For my North American children, Advent is a...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Apr 13, 2015 | Fostering Faith, The Christian Imagination
During the Easter season, Christians have traditionally greeted each other with the words “Christ is risen!,” to which the faithful reply, “He is risen, indeed!” The tradition is seldom practiced in North America or Australia anymore, apart from the opening of the...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Feb 6, 2014 | Fostering Faith
I have a confession to make: I am deeply afraid of the chaos that lingers at our doorstep, the chaos that rips into our mundane lives, forever marking a particular moment. It is the moment of the cancer diagnosis, the car accident, the death of an infant. The moment...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Oct 31, 2013 | Fostering Faith
If you type this question into Google, the first hit—“gotquestions.org”—says that the answer is found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Aug 29, 2013 | Fostering Faith
“Moralistic-therapeutic deism” is the phrase University of Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith uses to describe the religious beliefs of North American teenagers. It is the belief that God wants people to be good, play nice, feel happy and go to heaven when they...
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