Driving by the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Des Moines, the sign* read, Any night a child is born Is a holy…
Steve Mathonnet-VanderWellDecember 17, 2013
The Kingdom of God There is hardly a more powerful phrase or image in all of scripture. It stirs me,…
Steve Mathonnet-VanderWellNovember 19, 2013
It’s about me. It’s all about me. The Twelve is supposed to move and work within that great tradition of…
Steve Mathonnet-VanderWellOctober 31, 2013
The first football game I attended upon moving to Iowa pitted the Dutch against the Norse. Who knew such strong…
Steve Mathonnet-VanderWellOctober 22, 2013
Dear Jesus,I know I have done wrong things that have made Your heart sad. Thank you for paying the price…
Steve Mathonnet-VanderWellOctober 8, 2013
The Surrender of Breda is a gigantic, life-size painting by Diego Velasquez (1599-1660). Mentioning it here on The Twelve,…
Steve Mathonnet-VanderWellSeptember 23, 2013
When Christians are asked to evaluate the ethics of war, “just war theory”—that a war is justified— quickly enters the…
Steve Mathonnet-VanderWellSeptember 9, 2013
At the 2009 Washington Correspondents’ Dinner, comedienne Wanda Sykes joked with President Obama, “They even gave you grief about your…
Steve Mathonnet-VanderWellAugust 20, 2013
My senior year of college, in a capstone sort of course, I read John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus…
Steve Mathonnet-VanderWellAugust 5, 2013
