Phil Steiger
Pastors face pressure all the time from people both within and from without their congregation. Christians have varying sets of expectations of pastors, and people with no particular religious affiliation also believe they know what pastors should be doing. In a twist of very-like-a-human irony, people who hate the idea of God also think they... Continue Reading →
Every Christian needs to be informed of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A theologian and pastor, he also enters the historical record as a spy, a cultural prophet, and eventually a martyr. He pastored and led during the rise of Nazi Germany, through World War II, and lost his life in a concentration camp hours... Continue Reading →
The American culture has made the decision that in order to fix what is wrong with society it needs to split people up into small groups of individuals according to some of the most superficial traits we have: skin color, genitals, and income. Think about that for a moment. We think we have identified a... Continue Reading →
There is an economic principle that we should all learn in a Civics class sometime in Middle School. The catchy acronym is: T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L. (pronounced, “Tanstafl”). It stands for, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” The principle is a simple observation of the choices we make – there is always a trade-off, and... Continue Reading →
Jonathan Edwards on self-love, selfishness, and Christian Charity (love): “Sin, like some powerful astringent, contracted his soul to the very small dimensions of selfishness; and God was forsaken, and fellow-creatures forsaken, and man retired within himself, and became totally governed by narrow and selfish principles and feelings. Self-love became absolute master of his soul, and... Continue Reading →
Last year I wrote a Thanksgiving address titled, “Thanksgiving is Better Than Grievance.” This year I am struck by how much better Thanksgiving is than politicization. For a few years now, certain political forces have asked young people to return to mom and dad’s house, and once all the work of food prep is over... Continue Reading →
Belief in truth is a bigger deal than you might at first imagine. If a truth exists, that puts me in a position, both in respect to knowledge and ethics, under that truth. I am its subject and it is not mine. I do not determine which ordinal direction the sun will rise from; I... Continue Reading →
Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism is a broad-ranging and powerful description of the rise of totalitarianism in Russia/Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in the first half of the 20th century. Born into a Jewish family, she experienced firsthand the Anti-Semitism that that came with those totalitarian regimes. The book was first published in 1951... Continue Reading →
Alexander Solzhenitsyn penned an essay titled, “Live Not By Lies” in 1974, and it contains a lot of wisdom for people who feel the force of coerced opinion and speech codes in our culture today. If you don’t know about Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s life, I encourage you to familiarize yourself with him. He was a dissident... Continue Reading →
A little while ago I wrote about what I thought were some of the critical frontiers in Christian apologetics. None of them are new as in sui generous, but they are new in the sense that we have not paid much attention to them in the American culture for a while. I still believe all... Continue Reading →
Every Thought Captive 