3 “Through Lines” of Contemporary Culture and How Living Churches Probably Shouldn’t Respond

Recently I was speaking at a church on the topic of cultural engagement. It's a huge and complex topic. It's also, understandably, a controversial topic. It's controversial for a few reasons. First, there are often very controversial issues at stake, issues related to politics, sex, family, entertainment, education, and wealth to name just a few....

Social Justice from the Left and the Right

Within the Church (broadly speaking) there are two groups of people. Not everyone in the Church fits into one of these groups. In fact, many people in the Church are a little weirded out by these two groups. This is largely because the people in these two groups tend to be agitators. They stir things...

Doubting Well

Seems like I've been talking about doubt a lot lately. Whether it's being asked to respond to the latest exvangelical publicly denouncing their faith on TikTok or friends asking me to intervene with a loved one who is asking difficult questions about God, doubt - and our response to it - has been on my...

festivals of atonement

In G.K. Chesterton's poem The Ballad of the White Horse he describes the scene when Viking hordes invaded and nearly conquered England. Our towns were shaken of tall kings with scarlet beards like blood:The world turned empty where they trod,They took the kindly cross of God and cut it up for wood. The Vikings didn't...

health care is not a human right

G. K. Chesterton once said, “What is the good of words if they aren’t important enough to quarrel over?” It is the sign of a healthy society when citizens care enough about truth and about each other to quarrel over the exact meaning of words. A lack of quarreling, on the other hand, may signal...

is comedy dead?

20 years ago a quirky, infectious, and relatively unknown Italian actor named Roberto Benigni won the Oscar for best actor. He shockingly beat out Ian McKellen, Tom Hanks, Edward Norton, and Nick Nolte (!) to win the award. He won the Oscar for his role in the World War II film Life is Beautiful. Not only...

sex talk

This past Sunday at Christ's Church of Oronogo, I got to teach part of a class to parents of teenagers on the topic of sex. I always feel a little weird speaking at things like this - not because I'm embarrassed about the topic or afraid of discussing controversial issues - but because I don't...

everything is problematic

That is the almost cloying humour of the present situation. I can say abnormal things in modern magazines. It is the normal things that I am not allowed to say. I can write in some solemn quarterly an elaborate article explaining that God is the devil; I can write in some cultured weekly an aesthetic...