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....

aliens attack the capitol

On New Year's Eve I was at a small party with good friends. We were playing games, talking, laughing, eating all kinds of unhealthy foods. As it got close to midnight, someone said that we should turn on the TV. It's weird isn't it? The television has been granted the authority to tell us when...

critical race theory, friend or foe?

Critical race theory (CRT). What have you heard about it? What do you think about it? What in the world is it? CRT has been in the news a lot lately. President Trump has recently banned its use in diversity training in federal agencies. We didn't get a single question about Chinese persecution of religious...

religion and cancel culture

John Calvin famously called human nature an "idol factory." This seems to be self-evidently true. We are always creating for ourselves objects or ideas to venerate. If that's true, then it is also true that we are always creating for ourselves new religions. A religion, to put it very simply, is a set of beliefs...

is christianity political?

This is my second post on theology and politics. You can read the first one here. I got several complaints about my politics survey. The second most common complaint was that I only used a 4 point Likert scale instead of a 5 point scale. This was very much on purpose because neutral answers are...

godfather problem: learning arithmetic from hitler

**Just so there's no confusion, Bill Hybels is not Hitler.** I was recently doing some light reading on anti-natalism. If you don't know what that is, anti-natalism is a perky little philosophy that argues procreation is inherently bad and it would have been far better if none of us had ever been born. Therefore refraining...

godfather problem: why your plane is probably not going to crash

A couple of weeks ago my son and I boarded a plane to Boston. I had an empty week in my schedule and airline miles burning a hole in my pocket, so I decided it was time to take Logan to a game at Fenway. We would spend some time with one of my best...

if only there were some evidence

the inconvenience of awe Magna opera Domini exquisita in omnes voluntates ejus. This is the Latin inscription that was placed in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge in 1871. It is a quote from Psalm 111. "Great are the works of the Lord, sought out by all who take pleasure therein." It was in this famous...

oh father, where art thou

What do Friedrich Nietzsche, David Hume, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Arthur Schopenhauer, Thomas Hobbes, Jean Meslier, Voltaire, Jean d'Alembert, Baron d'Holbach, Ludwig Feuerbach, Samuel Butler, Sigmund Freud, H.G. Wells, John Toland, Robert Taylor, Richard Carlile, Albert Ellis, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens all have in common? Well, actually...