As the movement of biblical equality finds expression not only in academic communication, but also in the arts, we indeed feel the wind rush past our faces as we sit in our open cockpit plane, flying through the clouds, heading towards the sun, and the Son.

The spread of AIDS in Africa is related to a low view of women, an opinion confirmed in a Wall Street Journal article published on July 9, 2002... the article stated that the spread of HIV is related to “the emotionally charged, culturally entrenched ways that men and women interact sexually.”

For many, it is not only the intellect that needs to receive the message of biblical equality: An individual’s heart and imagination also need to receive the message of freedom and wholeness. The arts are a beautiful tool for guiding us to consider how life could be.

Acclaimed author Walter Wangerin Jr. discovered the power of story in a childhood Sunday School class.

“I remember that a teacher of mine would tell a biblical story, and I literally just packed up my bags and moved into that story,” said Wangerin. “I was Zaccheus in the tree.”

The Uptown neighborhood of Chicago is a crowded urban setting where the skies are smudged with pollution, and pavements have stifled out most greenery except weeds and a few stunted trees. Is this a place where the message of God’s care for humanity can be heard?

After September 11, 2001, the news was bursting with reports of women in Afghanistan, who were required to follow a restrictive dress code, banned from working outside the home, and denied access to medical treatment and education.

Eve’s Revenge by Lilian Calles Barger gives us a thoughtful, grounded perspective on what it means to be human as well as woman. We experience all of life from within a body, but often think that we must choose between a narcissistic culture that would reduce all of life to the body and its desires, and a “spiritual” perspective that seeks to…