The Best Super Bowl Commercial

There is no cultural event in contemporary life that draws as much cross-demographic interest as the Super Bowl. In a world where the monoculture has largely gone extinct, the Super Bowl remains that one thing where men and women, young and old, rich and poor, black and white, conservative and liberal, the football passionate and...

An Argument Against the Existence of Terminators (and For the Existence of God)

In my last post, I gave some of my initial thoughts about ChatGPT, the powerful new chatbot powered by artificial intelligence. Any sudden leaps in technological advancement lead to two different feelings among most people, amazement and paranoia. It is only natural that people would feel wonder and curiosity when what was recently impossible is...

The Robots are Coming

The world changed forever at the end of this past November. If you aren't a very online person, you may not have any idea what I'm talking about. But if you do spend much time online, particularly on Twitter, you are aware of ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence. It is certainly...

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....

The Consequences of Magical Thinking

Arthur C. Clarke was a science-fiction author. His most famous work was the screenplay for the Kubrick film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. He once pointed out that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." What did he mean by this? Well, our experience with technology is based almost entirely on power and not knowledge....

The Joe Rogan Experience

This morning I finished listening to what is undoubtedly one of the most listened to podcast episodes in the history of podcasting. You can listen to it here. In fact, I would encourage you to listen to it not because I'm convinced that everything said is absolutely true, but because being exposed to ideas that...

Dirty Mark

I never much liked Mark Driscoll. I don't say that because it is now fashionable to not like Mark Driscoll. I say that only to admit my biases here at the beginning of this post. I suppose in some ways I should have liked Mark Driscoll. I'm a white evangelical male who was entering leadership...

Propaganda

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. A show designed specifically for the education of preschoolers had created a "Pride Parade Sing-a-Long" complete with drag queens, transgendered beavers, and lesbian alligators. It was clearly an example of activist indoctrination. The hope, I'm sure, was that very young children (who typically watch these shows without their...

Our Lying Eyes

George Floyd. Adam Toledo. Daunte Wright. Ma'khia Bryant. We know the tragic threads that draw each one of these four names together. Each of their stories differ in important details, but each was a black person whose life was ended by a police officer. The circumstance of their deaths is not all they share however....