Results tagged “culture”
Idolatry New and Old (07/08/09 - 48 Comments)
A little while ago my friend Ian loaned me the PBS DVD series The Story of India This six-part series, which runs about six hours, simply tells the story of India from ancient times until roughly the time of Indian Independence. It is a good documentary, even if the host's excessive exuberance toward all things Indian is a little bit hard to take after a while. "Oh, isn't that wonderful! Fantastic! Remarkable! Unbelievable! Stupendous!" As...
An Inflated Predator Panic (05/22/09 - 61 Comments)
This is a topic I've written about before, but one that has been on my mind again lately. I'll be interested in your feedback on it. Ted Wallis, a doctor in Austin, Texas, recently came upon a lost child in tears in a mall. His first instinct was to help, but he feared people might consider him a predator. He walked away. 'Being male,' he explains, 'I am guilty until proven innocent.'" As awful as...
Ashamed of Shame Itself (05/14/09 - 14 Comments)
Last night as Aileen and I taught some of the teens at church (as we do every Wednesday evening) we encountered the concepts of guilt and shame. It is a tricky concept this, as it may be positive or negative depending on the context. The Bible makes it clear that, in their innocence, before they invited sin into the world, Adam and Eve were "naked and unashamed." Written after the fact and written at a...
Book Review - Unfashionable (05/05/09 - 84 Comments)
Every now and again I pick up a book that I feel I should really enjoy. And yet, for one reason or another, it simply does not "click." Unfashionable by Tullian Tchividjian is just such a book. It has been widely praised by Christians I respect and its six (!) pages of endorsements contain a veritable who's who of prominent Evangelicals, each of whom tells of his esteem for the book and its author. And...
Reveling in Humiliation (04/01/09 - 26 Comments)
Some time ago I read Girls Gone Mild, a book by Wendy Shalit. Shalit's first book, A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue was published eight years ago and caused quite a stir. Shalit, an Orthodox Jew, made the audacious claim that the sexual revolution may not have been entirely beneficial for women. She decried the lack of modesty this revolution has brought about and, according to TIME defended "compellingly, shame, privacy, gallantry, and...
A Big Name or a Big Person? (09/10/08 - 9 Comments)
I wanted to post a brief follow-up to Monday's article in which I asked Who Shapes Your World? I think the issue of celebrity and heroism was a fascinating component of the James Bradley's book Flags of our Fathers. In the book he described the infamous battle of Iwo Jima, but he did so within the context of his search for the role his father played in that battle. His father, John Bradley, a Navy...
Book Review - Rapture Ready (05/05/08 - 18 Comments)
It is no secret that Christians have a subculture all of their own. It is an expansive subculture that for some people can encompass almost every area of life. From music to television, movies to sports, Christians can enjoy all manner of entertainment, all of it “blessed” by one Christian organization or another. While the majority of non-Christians are generally unfamiliar with this subculture, I have come across some for whom it presents something of...
Book Review - The Courage To Be Protestant (04/22/08 - 17 Comments)
My interest in reading good books came a little bit too late to read David Wells’ four part series of books as they were released (No Place for Truth, God in the Wasteland, Losing Our Virtue and Above All Earthly Pow’rs). I now have the four volumes sitting on my bookshelf and have often thumbed through them wishing I could muster up the motivation to dive into the series. The problem is that I am...
Book Review - Hollywood Worldviews (02/05/08 - 11 Comments)
Perhaps no area of discernment is more difficult and more controversial than the Christian’s engagement with culture. Are we to be cultural gluttons, immersing ourselves in the culture around us so we can speak to it from the perspective of first-hand experience? Are we to be cultural anorexics, avoiding culture altogether lest it corrupt us? Or are we to take some middle ground where we appreciate aspects of it while rejecting others? In Hollywood Worldviews,...
"The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment" Blog Tour (Day 3) (01/09/08 - 0 Comments)
Today The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment blog tour moves to The A-Team Blog. In case you’ve missed it on previous days, the tour works like this: the owner of another blog poses a question about discernment and my answer is posted on his or her blog on an appointed day. I follow the comments made on the blog, addressing them as they arise. It has become, I hope, a chance to facilitate a productive and...
The Death of the Grown-Up (12/18/07 - 15 Comments)
Where have all the grown-ups gone? It’s a question that has perplexed me. Why is it that young people these days seem unwilling, or perhaps unable, to grow up? What is so attractive about youth, about perpetual adolescence, that is so attractive? My wife and I have discussed these things at length, trying to understand why so many of the young people we know (young people who are really not so young anymore) seem stuck....
Public Schooling and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies (12/17/07 - 79 Comments)
I spent some time this weekend reading Al Mohler’s forthcoming book, Culture Shift (set for a mid-January release). In an endorsement of this book, John Piper writes, “Albert Mohler is a steady guide, unremittingly clear-headed.” This is a fair assessment. Anyone who reads and enjoys Mohler’s blog, will find this book is more of the same—commentary from the junction of faith and culture. In fact, many of the book’s twenty chapters are based upon Mohler’s...
The Death of Shame (12/12/07 - 11 Comments)
Over the past few years, Aileen and I have continually returned to the question of why so many young people these days seem unwilling or unable to grow up. It is a question that has confused us, especially as we look to many of the young people we know. There was a time when young people seemed eager to grow up, to mature, and to head out into the world to make their mark on...
Halloween - Trick or Retreat? (10/24/07 - 69 Comments)
Will you participate in Halloween this year? Halloween is once again nearly upon us. Articles about the occasion are beginning to make their way into my RSS reader and I thought I'd keep up with one of this site's few traditions and write an article on the subject. My thoughts on the subject continue to develop as perhaps long-time readers will notice. Just this morning Pulpit Magazine linked to a great article courtesy of Grace...
Blessings, Kingdoms, Smiles and Books (10/12/07 - 13 Comments)
This is a compilation of various things that caught my eye this week. They were things that needed more explanation than I could offer in A La Carte, but not enough that they merited an article of their own. Same Sex Blessings It's easy to write off the Anglican Church, and especially so up here in Canada where it seems that so few churches have really remained faithful to the gospel. So many churches, or...
Spoilt for Choice (09/14/07 - 28 Comments)
How endless choice is making us endlessly miserable. A few weeks ago my cell phone went missing. For a few days we looked for it passively, keeping half an eye out for it as we went about our business in the house. It didn't show up. So for one morning we tore the house apart, looking high and low. We couldn't find it anywhere. All we knew was that it was last seen in the...
Virtual Cheating in a Virtual World (08/13/07 - 14 Comments)
Second Life and cheating in a virtual world. Friday's edition of the Wall Street Journal featured an article about Second Life, a popular online digital world. It is inhabited by people like you and me, but people who take on a new identity--a second life. It is, by all accounts, an engaging experience. This is borne out by the millions of people who have signed up for an account (almost 9 million according to the...
Glorying in Humiliation (07/19/07 - 17 Comments)
Over the past few days I've been reading Girls Gone Mild, the new book by Wendy Shalit. Shalit's first book, A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue was published seven years ago and caused quite a stir. Shalit, an orthodox Jew, made the audacious claim that the sexual revolution may not have been entirely beneficial for women. She decried the lack of modesty this revolution has brought about and, according to TIME defended "compellingly,...