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Welcome to Thinking Better...
ThinkBetter Media is an online education platform to equip leaders and earnest disciples to understand contemporary culture and Christianity better
and then to participate constructively in them.
Informed
Description and counsel are grounded in scholarly evidence and argument
Balanced
Legitimate options receive genuinely open consideration and treatment
Practical
Analysis and explanation are translated into realistic actionables for both public and private life
John Stackhouse is extraordinarily gifted at making important, and even esoteric, developments in philosophy and theology accessible to the general public.
His insights are penetrating and, often, surprising.
And as a theological critic of trends in contemporary society, he has no peer.
—Nicholas Wolterstorff,
Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology,
Yale University
Front-line scholarship grounds the work we do
Our analysis, explanation and conclusions draws together
information and patterns from several disciplines:
Cultural, Intellectual, & Ecclesiastical History
Philosophy of Knowledge
Sociology of Religion
Philosophy of Religion
Comparative
Religious Studies
Historical and Constructive Theology
John Stackhouse strikes a brilliant balance. As a devoted Christian, he has the confidence to proselytize, yet he also has the humility to respect my intelligence, dignity, and humanity as a non-Christian. Be not afraid of his invitation. In our age of raging dogmas, who asks for simple consideration without expectation of outcome? Stackhouse, that's who. In more ways than one, this book is a counter-cultural delight."
Irshad Manji
Founder, The Moral Courage Project, Oxford University
Who is ThinkBetter Media for?
Evidence-based counsel for those who want tomorrow to be significantly better than today.
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Leaders & Influencers (CEOs, politicians, scholars, and journalists) who want to lead in a historically and sociologically grounded way with ethical and productive solutions tailored for today’s complicated challenges.
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Pastors & Ministry Leaders who want to lead their congregations and organizations informed by Scripture, theology, tradition, and the most pertinent deliverances of the social sciences. These are the leaders who see that "5 per cent better than last year" will not meet the needs of the times. Only fresh thinking and substantial change will get the job done.
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Serious Disciples who want to think responsibly and thoroughly about crucial subjects, who want to live their faith with authenticity and effectiveness, and who yearn to commend and defend the gospel today with the right balance of courtesy, gentleness, clarity, and power.
Resources for Christian ethics in accessible and digestible forms
Complex subjects broken down into specific, concrete, and practical content.
If you have only half an hour—or even just 10 minutes some weeks!— you can still think better.
Weekly
Articles
Explanations and critical evaluations of nine crucial subjects with implications and applications in weekly instalments from the ThinkBetter Signature Series.
Expert Interviews
New biweekly interviews of experts and fascinating friends from around the world. Plus archives of past interviews with HD video streaming + audio downloads.
Bimonthly
Bi-monthly live webinars on important issues pertaining to Christianity and culture. Time for Q&A at the end. Plus, access to past webinar recordings
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Bonus Timely Commentary
Hot (or, sometimes, cool) takes on the news cycle to give you a different and Christian angle on what's just happened—or now happening.
Enroll Now
We will continue to offer good, free content
for friends old and new who can visit just once a fortnight.
PLUS ThinkBetter Media offers richer, more frequent, and more varied content to friends who can help support our work through subscriptions. Choose your benefits & pricing plan:
Sustainers
Monthly Plan
Exclusive content on apologetics, theology, epistemology, ethics, culture, and discipleship
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Weekly Signature Series
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Bi-weekly expert interviews (includes video streaming + free audio and transcript downloadables)
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Monthly ThinkBetter Themes
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Bi-monthly live webinars featuring Q & A's
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Subscriber-only updates, news, and current events commentary
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Access to members-only archives
$29
Per Month
Sustainers
Annual Plan
Exclusive content on apologetics, theology, epistemology, ethics, culture, and discipleship
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Weekly Signature Series
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Bi-weekly expert interviews (includes video streaming + free audio and transcript downloadables)
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Monthly ThinkBetter Themes
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Bi-monthly live webinars featuring Q & A's
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Subscriber-only updates, news, and current events commentary
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Access to members-only archives
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Annual subscription for $299/year (save 12%)
$299
Per Year
* All membership plans can be cancel at any time!
Canada has produced one of Christianity’s most clever—and demanding—givers of worthwhile advice in John Stackhouse.
—Douglas Todd,
Award-Winning Ethics and Diversity Editor,
The Vancouver Sun
Thoughtful questioners, problem solvers,
decision makers, and earnest disciples—
If you’re looking for both realism and hope in your mission,
you’re in the right place.
Let's move the needle.
Let's shift the paradigm.
Let's reconsider, reframe, or perhaps just renew our understanding of things that matter.
And then let's live differently.
I know, and you know, that merely learning more about something, or even changing one's interpretation of something, doesn't necessarily result in betterment of life, in greater flourishing. But many things that need improving won't be improved, or improved much, without better thinking about them—much better thinking.
Front-line academic work grounds the consultative work we do, drawing together both information and patterns from several disciplines. This range of studies has prepared me to help people—individuals and organizations, as consultant, writer or speaker—tackle big challenges.
So, I've given expert testimony to the British Columbia Supreme Court, the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, and the Canada Revenue Agency. I've been privileged to counsel the leaders of major congregations, charitable agencies, camps, and professional societies. And I have offered personal coaching to CEOs, physicians, industry leaders, pastors, lawyers, and politicians.
That's what I aim to offer you through ThinkBetterMedia. Opportunities to think better. I hope you'll come along and find it well worth your while.
CLARITY
Whether at the level of the concerned individual, in a social sector such as church, academy, or popular media, or even on a national scale, John Stackhouse specializes in identifying exactly what's going on. He draws on the social sciences to ground analysis in evidence and on philosophy and theology to call things by their proper names.
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CONTEXT
We can't move forward—as individuals, institutions, or societies—until we have thoroughly understood where we have been and what has brought us to the present moment. Only then can we plan for a better future. Wide training in history and experience in studying leaders and institutions equips Professor Stackhouse to work with ThinkBetter Media to help you understand your story, the story of your organization, and the story of your context.
ACTIONABLES
Supported by decades of extensive research, John Stackhouse has more than a few good ideas about what works and what doesn't. As an ethicist, expert witness, and experienced institutional consultant, Professor Stackhouse makes recommendations for the real world. The mission of ThinkBetter Media is to offer you the best possible counsel: specific, concrete, and practical.
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Prof. John Stackhouse has been featured by
Sample Webinars
Free for Sustainer MembersThu, Oct 12Virtual EventVirtual Event
Free for Sustainer MembersThu, Aug 03Virtual EventVirtual Event
Free for Sustainer MembersThu, Mar 23Virtual EventVirtual EventVirtual EventProfessor Stackhouse will clarify issues surrounding DEI and CRT, and then leads seminar participants to consider actual implications for the workplace and for school. Then an opportunity to share your own ideas, ask your particular questions, and get advice about your urgent challenges.
A Sampling of the Signature Series
Explanations and critical evaluations of crucial subjects with implications and applications.
Diversity,
Critical Race Theory, Anti-Racism—and You
Championed by so-called anti-racists as The Cure for Racism and castigated by frightened folk on the right as the latest expression of Oppressive Wokeness, CRT is mostly badly understood—by both sides. This series will outline its origins, its metamorphoses (and metastases), and its true implications for public education, scholarship, and the pursuit of racial harmony.
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The "Deconstruction" of "Ex-vangelical" Faith—
Repair or Replacement?
All over the Western world, people formerly identified with evangelical Christanity are undergoing processes of questioning, doubt and even outright disillusionment. Many of them are opting for a new form of faith. But is that new form still evangelical? Still Christian?
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Vocation and VUCA: New Life after the Pandemic
For decades, leadership circles have been pondering the implications of living with VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Sociologists likewise have been telling us we live in "hypermodernity." Particularly as we are all "re-starting" in the shadow of COVID-19, now should believers and churches retain a faithful grip on the past while we adapt to what seems like a constantly changing future?
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But What Happens to Them? Universalism and the Destiny of the Unevangelized
Many thoughtful critics of Christianity have long challenged the notion that God sends to everlasting torment every person who does not hear, understand, and believe the gospel. Increasingly, faithful Christians are questioning that doctrine, too. Some have opted for the idea of universal salvation, even as no orthodox denomination allows for it. But what if there is a middle option? (Spoiler: There is.)
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What Happened to Christian Canada?
—and Christian America? Britain? Australia? New Zealand? This series will draw on history, sociology, theology, political science, and (of course) sports to discover why things have changed so much, so quickly, for the worse—and, from a Christian point of view, also for the better. (Yes, secularization theory will be amply discussed, don't you worry.)
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Still a Christian—but Why?
There are lots of reasons to be sorry as a Christian. But on balance and on the whole, it's much better to be a Christian than not to be. Rather like, on balance and on the whole, it's much better to be alive and healthy than not to be. This series will outline the best reasons Christians have found to stay Christian, and why the best reasons to jettison the religion aren't finally compelling. So, yes, still "humble apologetics"—but not apologetic.
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Later series will look at sexual ethics & gender identity, populism in celebrity leadership, the vogue of neo-Anabaptism, the continued confusion of theological education, the growth—and pathologies—of global evangelicalism, and why the last true universities in North America might be the little Christian ones....
