Amy Julia Becker is a writer, a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, wife to Peter, and mother to Penny and William. She blogs about the things she’s thinking about, which usually include theology, disability, children and parenting, education, and the intersection of grief and hope. She is the author of A Good and Perfect Gift: Faith, Expectations, and a Little Girl Named Penny, and Penelope Ayers: A Memoir. She keeps a personal blog at Patheos called Thin Places.
Ian and Larissa: A Story of Choosing the Hard, Good Road | Ian’s disability marks the young couple’s marriage as different. Maybe they have something to teach us. (May 21, 2012)
Bearing Life in a Broken World: A Review of No Easy Choice | Strengthened by her own story, Ellen Painter Dollar’s book explores the ethical dimensions of reproductive technology. (May 4, 2012)
Dad-in-Chief: Parenting Lessons from Rick Santorum and President Obama | We need more political leaders modeling family sacrifice—especially for children with disabilities. (March 14, 2012)
Why Teens Drift Away from Faith | It might have something to do with their marginally Christian parents. (November 17, 2011)
Perfection Obession: What It Looks Like to Accept Limitations | Amy Julia Becker finds perfection in her daughter’s limitations in her award-winning book, ‘A Good and Perfect Gift.’ (Interview by Karen Swallow Prior, November 7, 2011)
A Real Christian Education | My daughter Penny reveals that academic success is not always connected to test scores. (October 26, 2011)
Coming Home after Hurricane Irene | The place where our family played, worked, and fell in love for nearly 100 years was destroyed. So it’s not “just a house.” (September 21, 2011)
MIA: Men Who Don’t Use Pornography | For a new survey on prostitution, researchers had a hard time finding men who don’t buy sex, whether embodied or digital. (September 8, 2011)
When God Told Us to Adopt | Amy Julia Becker talks to fellow Her.meneutics writer Jennifer Grant about her new memoir, Love You More. (August 1, 2011)
Two Stories about Babies with Down Syndrome | In light of new prenatal testing, what story will Christians tell about children with an extra 21st chromosome? (July 28, 2011)
When Sex Becomes an Idol | Jenell Williams Paris’s The End of Sexual Identity seeks to overturn the power that sexual identity labels—homosexual and heterosexual—have in and outside the church. (July 18, 2011)
The Lost Girls of China and India | Why so many baby girls are being killed in the world’s two largest countries. (June 29, 2011)
Food Cleanses and the Integrated Self | How nourishment illuminates the relationship between the body and other aspects of our humanity. (May 13, 2011)
How Do I Explain Easter to My Children? | The reality of a human raised from the dead is hard enough for adults to understand, much less kids. But here are some approaches I’ve taken. (April 20, 2011)
Should Christians Use Self-Help Programs? | Many programs teach self-love and self-compassion as a path to inner peace. What is the gospel response? (March 29, 2011)
When Christians Get Divorced | A popular Christian blogger recently announced the end of her marriage. How should churches respond to those grieving? (March 23, 2011)
The Divine Grace of Diapers and Dirty Laundry | A harried mother of three rediscovers Kathleen Norris’s classic The Quotidian Mysteries. (March 18, 2011)
The State of Sex | For one writer, porn is simply a representation of sex: a brutal, male-dominated, and harmful act. Sign me up for lifelong virginity. (February 11, 2011)
Why I Don’t Want to Be a Chinese Mother | I don’t want to be an American mother, for that matter. (January 17, 2011)
Blessed Are Those with Alzheimer’s | Discovering God’s image in a nursing home called “The Beatitudes.” (January 14, 2011)
The Virgins-Only Dating Website | Is WeWaited.com really a perfect haven for Christians struggling in a sex-obsessed culture? (January 12, 2011)
Holiday Shopping for Jesus | How women—who have begun to out-earn men in the U.S. business sector—can use their holiday spending to glorify God. (December 15, 2010)
Secular People Need Sabbaths, Too | Internet fasting. Experiments in chastity. Meatless Mondays. Nonreligious people are seeing the personal benefits of Christianity, even if they don’t have the whole story. (November 18, 2010)
Doctrine in Diapers | In teaching my children about God, I’m not sure who’s receiving the greater lesson. (November 9, 2010)
Actually, It Takes Much More Than a Village | Annie Murphy Paul’s new research shows mothers alone cannot be responsible for babies’ prenantal health. (October 28, 2010)
Abortion Case: Womb vs. Egg | Ethical issues abound in case of British Columbia couple who wanted surrogate mom to terminate pregnancy after baby was found to have Down Syndrome. (October 15, 2010)
How Christians Will Save America’s Schools | Being salt and light in a failing education system. (September 28, 2010)
A Course in Dying 101 | What Christians can teach our death-denying culture. (September 7, 2010)
Preserving Man and Beast | Humans are more valuable than animals—which is precisely why we can’t be indifferent to animal suffering. (August 23, 2010)
How Many Kids Should We Have? | To answer the question, Christian couples need more than a few select Bible verses. (July 19, 2010)
Why Dads Matter | The role of fathers may be changing, but it’s no less essential. (June 25, 2010)
Sexy Evangelism | Why our narrative about sex, dating, and marriage is a gospel priority. (June 15, 2010)
I Once Was ‘Lost’ But Now Am Found | Despite all its syncretistic symbols, the show’s finale depicted one aspect of Christian theology superbly. (May 25, 2010)
Adultery: My Genes Made Me Do It | Research like the kind in For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage runs the risk of reducing people to brain chemistry and DNA. (May 19, 2010)
The Anti-Racist, Anti-Fear Gene | People with Williams Syndrome, a rare genetic condition, show us what it means to live trusting others as God calls us to. (May 11, 2010)
Perplexed by the Pill | How birth control pills—which turn 50 this year—led me to believe I was in control of my life and my body. (May 5, 2010)
Yoga: An Exercise in Discernment | How I submit the meditative practice to Christ. (April 22, 2010)
iHave an iPad, But at What Cost? | Perhaps technological advances are challenging spiritual disciplines, such as prayer, contemplation, and waiting to hear from the Lord. (April 12, 2010)
Caught between the Easter Bunny and the Empty Grave | Reducing Easter to a purely spiritual celebration is almost as problematic as reducing it to a consumer smorgasbord. (April 1, 2010)
Finding the Right Words for Disability | Following Jesus’ example in John 9, I want to see beyond ‘the problem’ when I encounter people with disabilities. (March 18, 2010)
Eliminating Suffering or Eliminating People? | When genetic testing threatens our common humanity. (February 26, 2010)
Iris Robinson, Jesus Loves You More Than You Will Know | Speaking grace and truth into Ireland’s sex scandal involving a born-again Christian woman. (January 22, 2010)
Dr. Grace Augustine: Avatar’s Christian Character? | Well, Christian-ish, anyway. Na’vi spirituality seems to mix pantheistic and monotheistic beliefs. (January 18, 2010)