Articles & Writings
The Washington Institute seeks to provide an array of resources to help nurture thinking about the wider world and and the joyful responsibility that is ours to history and to the world as we explore our common life together.
Articles & Writings
LOOKING BEHIND THE FABRIC
Articles | Engaging | GarberYears ago now, I began to wonder why it was some students I had loved kept at the vocation of their faith, and others did not. Never a theoretical idea, these were people that had become part of my heart. We had walked together, read together, prayed together, laughed together.
And then, inch by slow inch, they began to walk away, disconnecting what they said mattered most from the way they made decisions about both the present and the future—and over time they became different people.
The “Now, This…” Culture: Daily News and the Death of Wisdom
Articles | CarterConfess that you rarely read blogs, listen to talk radio or watch reality television, and most people will make no general assumptions about your intelligence. But admit that you never watch television news, rarely listen to radio news broadcasts and only read newspapers on Sundays (and then only the comics page), and the reaction will be markedly different. You will automatically be pegged as a being ill-informed, out-of-touch, and possibly even anti-intellectual.
But what is it about daily news that is worthy of such veneration?
“Thy Kingdom Come” through Hands of the Healers
Articles | HaleySeveral times a day, the Medevac helicopters fly hurriedly over the house in Washington, DC where we used to live. We lived in the flight path between the Children’s Hospital complex and points to the southwest. Depending on the direction of the helicopter’s flight, either it is flying to someone in distress, or it is carrying the most precious thing, a human being, back to the hospital for healing. And if the one in that helicopter is being rushed back to the hospital for care, what kind of care will he or she receive? What kind of doctor will they meet? Will they receive excellent medical care, and that is all? Or will they get that plus the gracious and powerful touch of doctors and nurses who know that their hands somehow are the hands of God to bring healing to a broken world and broken bodies?
A CHURCH OF GREAT GRACE AND GREAT TRUTH: The Call to the Convocation of Anglicans in North America
Articles | GarberPerhaps your images of Switzerland are forever formed by “The Sound of Music.” Or maybe you’ve walked through its meadows and across its mountains yourself, astounded by its beauty. A few years ago my wife and I spent a week there, hiking and biking, and had a wonderful time together, drawing in as deeply as we could the vastness of its Alpine glory. What drew us in particular was the importance of visiting our daughter in a little village in the Alps, which for more than 50 years has been the home to a community called L’Abri; she had spent several years there during her 20s, moving from being a student to being a staff member, what they call a worker.
One day I asked about a Wi-Fi connection, and she told me that the little Protestant church in the village was a good place, saying that a nearby chalet might provide me a way into the wider world. So I walked that direction . . .
A Reason for Being
Articles | GarberFor people who care about America and its history—past, present, and future -- the stakes are not small, for the church and for the culture. It is for this reason that The Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture has come into being. With a vision that is at the same time very local and embodied, and very national and international, we are a network of men and women who are learning about the meaning of vocation, of what it means to hear God as he calls people to care for the world in his name. We believe it is a strategic place to begin— seeking the renewal of our common life as we do so.
A Wound in My Heart Has Been Healed
Articles | GarberOn Kenya, Kazakhstan, and K Street too
Why is it that when we pray together as the people of God gathered for worship on Sunday, we regularly pray for our missionaries in Kenya and Kazakhstan, but not for our attorneys on K Street?
Blood Water Mission: One band's journey from Nashville to Africa
Articles | GarberWhy is it that some people see themselves as implicated in the way the world is, and isn’t? in the way things are, and ought to be? There is nothing in the record deal signed by the Jars of Clay that requires them to care about the complexities of Africa, particularly about the structural problems that are horribly difficult and so very long-term. There are no cheap fixes. Only deep commitment, a sense of responsibility marked by love, will do.
Building to Last
Articles | TerrillOn the popular Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe, the star and narrator, travels to serve in some of the most back-breaking, grungy jobs one could imagine-jobs few of us would ever consider taking, even for one week. Some of his assignments have included road kill cleaner, mosquito control operator, turkey inseminator and sewer inspector.
Mike reminds us that our jobs can tire us, frustrate us and even slime us. Yet, our work can also make us feel most alive: being creative, building and serving.
CAPITALISM WITH A CONSCIENCE: Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, the Tiananmen Square Leaders, and You
Articles | Garber(This winter the week between Christmas and New Years Eve brought 17,000 students and others to the Urbana Convention. For decades it was held at the University of Illinois campus in Urbana/Champaign, but has now moved to downtown St. Louis. Steve Garber was asked to speak several times, once being "the final charge" for the students in the Business as Mission Track. This is his address.)
Two years ago this week I was in India, visiting two of our children who were working there that year. We didn’t see everything, at all. But we did travel through the south, in Tamil Nadu and Kerala—and of course in our seeing and hearing and smelling, were keenly aware that we were in a very different world.
Christ in the Marketplace
Articles | BartholomewWhen people hear my story I am often asked, “How did you go from seminary to business?” While at Regent I studied the original language for the word “ministry” which comes from the root word for “service.” In a very real sense all of us in this room perform a service, a ministry, in the marketplace everyday.
