The Pilgrims Correspondence

                        Christian Greetings Brethren, Poverty is a funny and fickle thing. It can influence a great amount of resilience for people who grow up with it, while also placing heavy restrictions upon individual societies and families who find themselves within its grasp. President James Garfield once talked about not praising poverty, saying instead that we should imagine what individuals could achieve if they had just had a little bit more. That idea was deeply personal to him. Garfield was born in a frontier cabin, came from very humble beginnings, and later taught at what would become Hiram College, then known as the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute. He carried the memory of scarcity with him even as he rose to become president of the United States. That quote has always made me think, especially about how differently his life might have looked if opportunity ha...

Christian Greetings Brethren, The question “Should Israel be able to defend itself?” is often treated as a political issue, debated in terms of borders and international law. Tho, when one reads the Old Testament carefully, it becomes clear that the question is fundamentally theological. The problem is that many assume Israel, as a modern nation-state, is equivalent to Israel in the Bible. Such an assumption is a product of dispensationalist thinking, which interprets prophetic texts as literal predictions of modern geopolitics. A closer reading of scripture, however, shows that the twelve tribes were scattered centuries ago and that the covenantal promises associated with Israel are not fulfilled in contemporary politics.  This theological misunderstanding has real political consequences today. Some contemporary figures, like Pete Hegseth, openly frame military engagement in the Middle East as a divine mission, claiming that soldiers are fighting “for Jesus” in Iran to bring about...