Stop it. I guess that is the sum of my thoughts on the matter and the bottom line to my advice. Let me explain why I was watching daytime TV in the first place. When the dentist tilts you back, just past 90 degrees, there is usually a TV hanging on the ceiling to distract... Continue Reading →
Bonhoeffer and Loving Our Enemies
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 →
Thanksgiving is Better Than Politicization
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 →
Totalitarianism, Loneliness and Meaning
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 →
Defending True Truth
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 →
All The Truthy Feels
Tara Isabella Burton’s book, Sacred Rites: New Religions for a Godless World is an incredible rollercoaster ride through the emerging religious landscape in the American culture. Throughout, not only does Burton catalogue new religions and religious practices, she insightfully analyzes the theology. She labels these religious practitioners the “Remixed”. They are part of the infamous... Continue Reading →
A Tale of Two Cities
With a title like this, we first think of Dicken’s novel by the same name. The cities are London and Paris during the French Revolution and follows the complications of intertwined lives between them during turbulent times. But I’m not thinking about London and Paris in the 18th century. I’m thinking about a much older... Continue Reading →
Swallowing the Poison Pill
Years ago, it was popular among young evangelicals to be enamored with postmodern philosophy and begin to interpret their Christian faith through its lens. For those who are not old enough to remember, twenty years ago postmodern philosophy created its own wave of popular Christian deconversion stories. We saw this primarily in what was called... Continue Reading →
Why the Adjective?
What does “social justice” mean? How is it different from justice? And if “social justice” is different than justice, which is the greater goal? If “social justice” is the greater goal, does this make justice less than just? These are some of the questions that have rolled through my mind for a while now that... Continue Reading →
The Manipulation of Protests
One of the most significant philosophical texts in the 20th century is, After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre. Though a wide-ranging work of moral philosophy, it takes as its starting point the state of moral conversation in our culture today. MacIntyre imagines a world in which people use moral terms without any longer knowing what the... Continue Reading →