Western Theological Seminary

Richard Mouw, the author of When the Kings Come Marching In, was a graduate of Houghton College. He studied at Western Theological Seminary and got his Master’s degree in philosophy at the University of Alberta. Mouw is the author of over twenty books, including The God Who Commands, The Challenges of Cultural Discipleship, and The Smell of Sawdust. He was the editor of the Reformed Journal and has served on many editorial boards. In 2007, Mouw was given the Abraham Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Life by Princeton Theological Seminary. He has served on many councils and boards that focus on theology and evangelism. Mouw has been very involved at Fuller Theological Seminary for many years. After obtaining the position as the fourth President at this seminary, serving for twenty years, he returned to being the Professor of Faith and Public Life. Before becoming President at Fuller, Mouw served as provost and senior vice…

What do I want to be when I grow up? Am I doing what I really want to do for the rest of my life? Is being a youth pastor my calling in life? Did I make the right choice to come to seminary? Why am I forcing myself to go to church? Why am I dragging myself to finish seminary? These were some of the questions that I struggle to answer throughout my four years in seminary. As a pastor’s child without a direction and purpose, I was pushed into attending Fuller Theological Seminary right…

Many Jewish (Hasidic?) traditions appear in The Chosen by Chaim Potok. All throughout the book, they play a big role in what Danny and Reuven, the main characters, must go through. Often, Danny is the one who has the traditions almost forced on him. However, because Reuven became Danny’s closest friend, much of it affects him too, at least to some extent. Danny specifically struggles throughout the book, as much of his life has been picked for him by his family according to their traditions. In…

Rav. Jacob Kalman, one of Reuven’s teachers who has survived a Nazi death camp has Reuven choose between his views and his father’s view. Rav Kalman has seen Reuven at The Zechariah Frankel Seminary meeting with Abraham Gordon and tells him he should not meet with Gordon because he has been excommunicated for his books that question the foundations of Judaism or set foot in The Zechariah Frankel Seminary ever again because it unclean. Rav. Kalman tells Reuven that he cannot agree with his father…

McClymond, Kathryn. “The Chosen: Defining American Judaism.” Shofar, vol. 25, no. 2, 2007, pp. 4–23., www.jstor.org/stable/42944233. In this work, the author describes her emotions as she read The Chosen for the first time as an adolescent. McClymond goes into detail about the biographical information concerning Chaim Potok. She also discusses the details of Potok leaving the very traditional and strict practice of the Hasidic Jewish population. Potok would seek a less religious education as he…

Chaim Potok, born February 17, 1929, was a Jewish Rabbi and author. After his Jewish education and rabbinic ordination, Potok graduated with a phd in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. Shortly afterward, he published his first book, The Chosen. In the Chosen, Chaim Potok uses setting and its description to emphasize the character’s change and growth, symbolism to convey to the reader Danny’s difficult upbringing, and in the end expresses the motivation behind such a method of…

Paul Tillich was considered an intellectual German American Christian existentialist theologian, who impacted theology in the 20th century. Given his background, Paul grew under a Lutheran Pastor, Johannes his father. He studied theology and attended seminary and earned two Doctorates at the age of 21. He enlisted in the German army as a Chaplain and was placed on the deadliest post in this war. Here he wrote his father stating, “Hell is all around us. It’s unimaginable” (Taylor 2017). This…

Online identity theft is a crime whereby criminals impersonate others using information about an individual gathered from the internet, typically for financial gain. If a thief is able to access your personal information, he or she can use it to commit fraud in your name, either online or in the physical world. Online identity theft is an issue of ethics as we all have a right to privacy, and online identity theft is a serious violation of this right. The thief now has the ability to gain…

Western’s a genre with a purpose For almost as long as the medium of filmmaking has existed so too has the Western first showcased in Edwin S. Porter film The Great Train Robbery. Though overall a simple film in retrospect the way in which it pushed the medium forward was revolutionary in containing a narrative. Cowboys are the initial American heroes of filmmaking which all others pull from; Westerns as a male focused genre the central genre trope of masculinity have been constructed on a…

The following essay will compare the cinematic language of the two Western classics Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966) while analyzing the claim that both film respectably are pioneers of the Western genre during their times proven on the basis of their original work in editing and narrative, and its influence on other filmmakers. After a brief summary of both movies, I will continue with the analysis of both, in particular with the formal…