Knowing or Trusting? Which Would You Prefer?
In the recent Academy Award-winning movie Arrival, one character asks another a compelling question: If you could see your whole life...
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THINKBETTER
What's wrong? How did we get here? What shall we do?
JOHN G. STACKHOUSE, JR.
Thoughts on
CHRISTIANITY, THE ACADEMY, AND PUBLIC LIFE
Successful–or Merely Popular?
The new season of “Black Mirror,” a “Twilight Zone” TV program now produced by Netflix, opens with an episode nicely terrifying for our...
God Confirmed Missing in Canadian Public Discourse: The Assisted-Suicide Debate
As Canada has begun a new era of officially sanctioned, physician-assisted suicide, one is struck by the almost complete absence of a...
What Will We Want Jesus to Want from Us?
Reading in Matthew 14 this morning, I was impressed afresh at the Apostle Peter’s audacity. I wonder if I, on the verge of 2016, will...
The Continual Unpredictability of a Straight Line
As one looks at Jesus in the Gospels, one sees the Lord carving through the world as a straight line of integrity, purpose, holiness, and...
Right in the Wrong(est) Places
The Epistle to the Philippians begins with Paul identifying himself as a “slave of Messiah Jesus.” And, at the time, he might have felt...
Christmas Thoughts toward New Year’s Eve
Not only do I hope that the combination of Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve—two bacchanaliae designed to subvert and submerge any “Christmas...
In on It
I’ve been musing through a collection of Advent poems by my favourite poet, Luci Shaw, entitled Accompanied by Angels. (Take up and read...
“But Who May Abide the Day of His Coming?”
If life has been disappointing, disillusioning, and worse—shocking, grievous, doomed—then what we crave is the predictable, the...
Renovations…of All Kinds
Renovations… always require more demolition than we had anticipated, always make a bigger mess than we had hoped, always take longer than...
No “God of the Gaps”…in Life
This post carries on from the last one: God is not our “everything.” God made us, in fact, with lots of needs that must be filled in lots...
These Be Your Gods, O Vancouver
As I face a new week and seek to get properly oriented on a Monday morning, my reading in Acts arrests me. When Stephen is recounting to...
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...
Genuine Faith in the Real World
Thomas Merton, writing in New Seeds of Contemplation (1961), reminds us that “our faith is weak. Indeed, too often the weakest thing...
Evil Encore
In the wake of the Newtown school shooting, I’ve been asked to comment since I am a theologian by profession and the author of a book on...
Theory Ain’t Belief–Thank God!
Philosopher Alvin Plantinga buries a little gem of insight in a footnote to his massive Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford, 2000) that...
Seriously, Mr. Toews? Christian Chaplains Providing “Generic” Services?
ITEM: “Public Safety Minister Vic Toews mandated that the federal prison system’s 71 full-time chaplains, who are overwhelmingly...
Hoping to Get Noticed
I don’t get enough attention. You might think I do, but I don’t. Do you? I’ll bet you don’t, either. Some people get more attention than...
Analytic Thinking Promotes Qualified Belief, not Disbelief
Some colleagues in psychology at UBC recently published a study that suggests that analytic thinking tends to promote religious...
Why Didn't God Just…?
Many of us wonder, particularly in the face of evil, why an omnipotent God didn’t just do things differently–you know, the way you and I...
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