John Stackhouse
3 min read
Holding One’s Nose to Defend Charlie Hebdo
“Secular society” does not mean that nothing is sacred. The common good is sacred. The welfare of society is sacred. And by “sacred” in...
John Stackhouse
3 min read
“Warning: May Contain Peanuts”: Trigger Warnings, Pedagogy, and Common Sense
I wish there had been a “trigger warning” during my music history course in 1980. I was finishing my undergraduate degree at Queen’s...
John Stackhouse
3 min read
Actually, No, You Are NOT “My Everything”
Robert Louis Wilken’s magisterial study of The Spirit of Early Christian Thought concludes, as it ought, with the highest of concerns...
John Stackhouse
1 min read
Ruth Padilla DeBorst at Regent This Summer
Please consider enrolling in one or both of the two courses we’re featuring this summer by Ruth Padilla DeBorst, a leading theological...
John Stackhouse
5 min read
Before You Talk or Write about Homosexuality…
A few friendly tips, if I may, for those Christian leaders, preachers, professors, pundits, activists, and anyone else who wants to...
John Stackhouse
2 min read
Big Decisions and Our Biggest Concerns
A friend has asked recently about whether he and his wife ought to keep possession of a luxurious cottage they inherited in lake country....
John Stackhouse
3 min read
What Is a University for?
According to University Affairs, a Canadian university professor recently worked with a student who asked that he be allowed to withdraw...
John Stackhouse
6 min read
Actually, It Isn’t Just about “Being”: It’s about “Doing,” Too
A Christian friend whom I know to be godly, serious, pious…and very successful in a highly competitive and demanding career…sent me the...
John Stackhouse
27 min read
Stackhouse on Volf on “Public Faith”
Good friend Miroslav Volf published a fine book a couple of years ago on A Public Faith. The journal Political Theology has released a...
John Stackhouse
5 min read
Freedom of the Child vs. Freedom of the Adult
LIke, I expect, most of my contemporaries, I wrestle with the concept of freedom. I have resisted the claim of certain philosophers and...
John Stackhouse
4 min read
Accepting Praise
When our sons took piano lessons, they were taught to bow properly. Now that is a skill otherwise rather rare in contemporary Canadian...
John Stackhouse
1 min read
“Occupy ___” . . . Two Years Later
It’s just about two years ago that the Occupy movement occupied the grounds of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, moving me to write a long...
John Stackhouse
2 min read
“A” Matters as Much as “B” Does, so “B” Doesn’t Matter: Me
Pope Francis has recently made the apparently newsworthy suggestion that the Great Commandments matter more than other commandments, and...
John Stackhouse
2 min read
Merton Channels Screwtape
Here’s a challenging passage from Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation that will bring many of us up short: The devil is not afraid...
John Stackhouse
3 min read
C. S. Lewis and the Test of Coherence
In Miracles (the book that gets my vote as the best generally overlooked book by C. S. Lewis), Lewis makes a point about the plausibility...
John Stackhouse
2 min read
No Bullying…and Don’t Stand Your Ground, Either?
Usually I blog when I’m convinced of something and want to share my opinion with the world—or, at least, that infinitesimal fraction of...
John Stackhouse
1 min read
“God Loves Uganda,” but Its Director Doesn’t Love Me
Oh, boy, does he not. HERE is the Christianity Today version of the remarks I made at Vancouver’s DOXA film festival. HERE is Roger Ross...
John Stackhouse
3 min read
St. Petersburg: Monuments to Egotism
Page through Alan Bullock’s biography of Adolf Hitler or or Li Zhishui’s reminiscences of Mao Zedong and you will need no further...
John Stackhouse
3 min read
The Cultural Gap Widens
When I was a kid growing up in Ontario, our church used to teach us ways in which we could signal to unbelievers that we were Christians...
John Stackhouse
2 min read
“Jesus Camp” Goes to Uganda
I look forward to serving as the lone respondent to the local showing of a documentary that has already received notice in the American...