Of all the ideological "sleight-of-hands" the modern thought police have pulled off, perhaps the greatest of them is convincing the modern mind that it was religion & not
All in Culture
The Vaccination Debate
We've been conditioned to believe that our views only hold public weight when they are confirmed through an election or the cultural elites of the New York Times. What this has created is entire generations of Americans who believe they must validate their views and perspectives through national laws. Nothing could be more destructive to communities.
Stories: An Invitation to a New World
We inescapably tell stories because we are fitting events into a particular view of the world (worldview). When a certain event takes place which would break down a particular view of the world stories are told about that event in order to invite its hearers
Beer Review: Mirror Pond Pale Ale from Deschutes Brewery
Mirror Pond Pale Ale is a simple beer in my opinion. A simply and delightful pale ale that has hidden elements of sweetness and tons of hoppy goodness.
Beer Review: Chainbreaker White IPA from Deschutes Brewery
The day was nice so I started with the White IPA called "Chainbreaker." This is an IPA brewed with wheat and the you'll not miss the wheat.
Subversive Stories
Rather than coming straight on in an open attack
Evangelical Theology & the Enlightenment Project
Because Yong has both an inside and outside perspective to evangelical theology he is graced to see certain presuppositions that many within are blind to. Forefront in Yong's estimation is an assumption that evangelical thought is thoroughly in line with the Enlightenment quest.
Stories: How We Perceive the World
When we learn to read the Bible as God’s story of redemption then we can actually begin to see plot lines extending beyond the pages of scripture and into the very worlds we inhabit. In doing so we allow the rich and beautiful complexity of the Bible pervade our lives rather than forcing the sterility of our modern minds onto the Bible.
You Are What You Love NOT What You Think
The way to get to someone's heart is not (solely) through the mind. We humans are more than just "brains on a stick." God gave us bodies and, therefore, the whole body must be
A Pleasing Symmetry
The atheists are decrying the pure unreasonableness of belief in God while the philosophy departments in America and Europe continue to burst at the seems with Christian philosophers.
The Strange Bedfellows of Literary Epistemology
The insistence that we approach the Bible to find out what it "says to me" opposed to a historically informed reading is heavily influenced by postmodern thought; regardless of how
Libertarianism For (Reformed) Dummies
Libertarianism is sometimes treated as a complicated moral, political, and economic system. While there may be some relatively complicated positive applications of it, libertarianism is a simple system of principles.
Marriage & Community
All of our current confusion over sexuality and marriage has only been made possible through the prior disintegration of communities. Both city life and suburbia give the guise of community by either placing one amongst many people (city) or by placing the family in a "guarded" castle (suburbia). Yet in both instances community (for the most part) is far, far away.
Baffled by the Torture Debate
Fear for life and loved ones has given strength to our fallen natures, ensnaring precious brothers and sisters in the lie that torture may be defined/redefined/justified by a Christian.
Is Wendell Berry Making Me A Pacifist?!?
What I'd like to do in this post is simply share some of the most powerful quotations from this essay with you all. I found, as I read this essay, that many of the deepest presuppositions the Modern West surround the concept of war. Consider the following as an extra dose of "food for thought:"
Am I Reading Wendell Berry or N.D. Wilson???
Each day is filled with "miracles." N.D. Wilson likes to point out that bats really do fly blind, plants really do turn sunlight into food, and caterpillars really do turn into butterflies; these aren't just stories we tell children. If we would heed Christ's admonition to consider the lilies and birds we would be filled with the miraculous wonder that God always intended us to see in His creation.
The Highway & The Sidewalk
Too often when someone disagrees with what someone is writing they tend to boil things down to silly arguments about the writers moral standing. Developing a an enlarged understanding of how differing mediums and purposes will affect one's form of communication could do much to quell the tumultuous world of social media and blogging. Especially among Christians.
An Apologia for Outcry
A personal apologia that is not inherently meant for outside readers. It is for me. It is what I have determined the Scriptures to require. A cry that the church should recognize, support, and encourage. The declaration that something is "lawful" does not make it righteous. And only a fool would declare that the recent string of deaths at the hands of police officers has been righteous.
The Bloody Marriage of Military & Sport
Sports, the movies, the mall, the news cycle, etc. all serve in a liturgical manner; they all shape us and form us in certain ways simply by our exposure to them. When Smith speaks of “liturgies” he’s talking about cultural rituals that tend to shape us in ways that we aren’t necessarily aware of. In other words, liturgies don’t ask for permission to shape the way we think and feel about certain things, they just do it.
Biblical Symbolism, Marriage, & the New Covenant
What is necessary is not the creation of symbols. The symbols (like marriage) are already there. What is necessary is that we have our eyes opened to the Biblical symbolism that pervades our world and that we view the world through that lens rather than the symbol-averse of late-modernity.