I’m enjoying Tim and Kathy Keller’s book on marriage, The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God. If ever there was an engaging example of “thoughtful faith and faithful thinking,” this book certainly is it. And, unlike many books on marriage, both married and single people can benefit greatly from reading it.
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A new book by Mark Noll deserves thoughtful consideration by all of Christ’s followers…not just those serving in academic venues. Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind challenges everyone to consider the difference the Christian worldview makes in the ways we think and the ways we think about thinking.
George Marsden’s landmark work from 1997, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, argued that the pillars of the Christian worldview – creation, fall, redemption, and consummation – should shape the way Christian scholars approach their work.
A common mistake in popular reasoning about complex issues is to swing from one unhealthy or inaccurate extreme to an equally (or worse) unhealthy or inaccurate extreme in the opposite direction. We swing the pendulum from one bad place to another.
I’ve mentioned Stephen Prothero’s revolutionary book, God is Not One, in this blog before. I think his writings are worth noting, especially with the hopes that he could be signaling a change in the ways our culture discusses different religious views. At the beginning of a new year, it may be worth praying that a new cultural trend will accompany the new calendar.
Our family concludes our Thanksgiving meal every year by sharing what we’re thankful for. I look forward to that moment all year long. We relive great moments, echo our notes of thanks, and nod our heads in agreement. And we smile.
I recently heard a sermon that missed the gospel – twice. I’m still intrigued by the combination.
Early on, the preacher pointed to Jesus’ baptism and observed that the Father spoke these powerful words to the Son, “You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” He then applied the text to his hearers. “We all need to hear those same words spoken by the Father to us. We, too, are his beloved. With us, too, He is well pleased.”
I have long been enamored by C.S. Lewis’ discussion of joy, his technical term for that longing we feel for something more than this life can deliver. In his spiritual autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he says it’s the theme of his entire life. In his classic essay, The Weight of Glory, he describes this “lifelong nostalgia” as a “longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside” and concludes that it is “no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation.”
I recently read Eric Metaxas’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and marveled at how Nazi Germany could have gotten so bad. And it was considered normal. A few days later I went to the Newseum in downtown Washington, DC and saw films of our country during the 1960s’ civil rights’ movement activities. I wondered how we go to the point where white people turned hoses, guns, and hate on black people. And how it was considered normal.
Thoughtful Christians often find themselves confused by mixed signals. A church or organization or any structure that involves a group of people may say they believe one thing but, in practice, they reveal something rather different. It’s an easy trap to fall into, especially if you value mission or doctrinal statements. The problem occurs when you fail to evaluate your actions through the grid of your stated beliefs or priorities.
Here is a third installment in my discussion of Robert Putnam and David Campbell’s American Grace. The first two blogs in this series were posted on August 8th and 22nd. This book, based on a remarkably extensive study of Americans’ views about religion, deserves careful consideration by Christians concerned with spreading the gospel in a polarized and pluralistic world such as ours.