The Cost of Free Speech on Campus
There is much to fear and loathe in the latest example of militant and violent campus intolerance. At Middlebury College in Vermont,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
The Anti-Islamic Movie and Cartoons: Let’s Not Defend Literary Litter
What is the point of the cartoon? The “journalists” at Charlie Hebdo published cartoons insulting the Prophet Muhammad. They’re stupid...
Are You Lovable?
This apparently bizarre question pops up over and over again in Christian worship and theology. It was posed to me recently by a friend...
How to Write Something that Is Worse than Useless
You might think that the worst thing you can do as a writer is fail to mention something important. Not so. Many textbook authors share...
Communicating Clearly…or Not
Here is my latest column for Faith Today on why it’s so hard to communicate matters of faith clearly nowadays and what we can do about it.
Obama's Gaffe–and Mine–and Yours…
It may not be obvious at first glance, but President Barack Obama is a lot like me. We both used to live in Hyde Park and attend the...
The Bus Wars
We all now know about the city bus ad campaigns, first started in Britain by secularists who encouraged readers that “There’s probably no...
Chris Tomlin's Worship Songs: We Have Got to Do Better
Since I have been complaining about loud music in church, I’ll stay in the groove and complain now about bad lyrics in church. And I have...
Why I Gave Up "Humility"
Humility is always fertile ground for jokes, isn’t it? A friend will mention an accomplishment, and before the rest of us can tease him,...
The Boomerangs of Sarcasm and Self-Righteousness
I’ve been struck in the exchanges some of us have been having about American politics (see the previous entry and comments) about the...
I'm Certain that There Are Two Kinds of Certainty
There is a lot of huffing and puffing nowadays about “postmodernism” and “skepticism” and “certainty” and “absolute truth.” And it’s been...
Jesus, I'm NOT in Love with You
One of the blights upon the hymnological landscape today is the continued presence of what we can fairly call the “love song to Jesus”...
A Bad Appeal for a Good Cause
Churches sometimes succumb to the temptation to appeal to our less-worthy motives in order to get us to do what we ought. In our age of...
A Perfect Blog Post
I’m back from vacation (and thanks to the several of you who wrote kind notes encouraging me to come back!), so I want to aim high. Here...