#culture

On the Changing of the Dictionaries

There is something morbidly fascinating about watching dictionaries slowly but surely change their definitions of common words. It raises some questions, not the least of which strike to the very purpose of a dictionary. Is a dictionary meant to be an objective arbiter of the meaning of words? Or is a dictionary meant to subjectively list the ways in which words are used among the speakers of a particular language at a particular time? These are valid questions, especially in …

It’s the Air We Breathe

At the end of the Second World War the Allied nations began to “denazify” Germany. After the final surrender, they began the long process of identifying Nazis and uprooting the influence of Nazism across all of society—in culture, media, economics, and politics. The goal was to create a Germany that was post-Hitler and, therefore, post-Nazi. It seems to me that in the West today we are witnessing an attempt to “dechristianize” our society—to identify and destroy the influence of Christianity …

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Strange New World

Whatever else is true of the modern, Western world, this much is beyond dispute: It is not what it used to be. We have entered into a new world that is very different from the one that came before, a new world that in many ways feels so very strange. Many of us feel like immigrants who have inadvertently found ourselves in a new world and are learning to adapt to its new rules, its new norms, its new mores. …

Brave by Faith

There is no doubt that the times are changing, no doubt that Western society is undergoing a great transformation in which those who hold to the Christian faith, or those who even respect it, are becoming a bare minority. Countries like the UK, Australia, and Canada are already quite far along in this process and, while the US has been insulated for a little bit longer, it is now clearly heading in the same direction. Secularism and modern forms of …

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self

“I am a woman trapped in a man’s body.” While this is a phrase we have grown accustomed to hearing in recent years, it is a phrase that would have been incomprehensible to those who lived and died just a couple of generations in the past. While it is full of meaning today, it would have been void of meaning back then. So what has happened in recent decades to make that phrase make sense? What has happened to make …

The Gathering Storm

If you know much of anything about Albert Mohler, you’ll probably be quick to understand the title of his new book, The Gathering Storm. Mohler is a lifelong student of Winston Churchill and has borrowed the title from the first volume of Churchill’s massive work on the Second World War. However, he hasn’t merely borrowed the title, but also the central argument: “the first task of faithfulness lies in understanding reality. Understanding the storm and seeing it for what it …

Beware (and Embrace) the Power of Story

There’s a new gospel in town, and it has recruited cadres of evangelists. This new gospel heralds peace with God and man, it proclaims enlightenment through acceptance. Yet it’s not acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but acceptance of a new morality, the embrace and endorsement of what Christians have long understood to be forbidden. It’s a popular and powerful gospel and someone is going to proclaim it to you very soon. They will proclaim it and call …

A Practical Guide to Culture

Christians have an interesting relationship with culture. Culture is a word we love to use, but one we rarely pause to define. We speak of culture’s dangerous encroachment on the church, of our need to avoid it, engage it, or redeem it. But what is this culture thing anyway? It happens to be the subject of an excellent new book by John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle. A Practical Guide to Culture is meant to help those who are helping the …

This Is Our Time

It’s certainly an interesting time to be alive, isn’t it? And it’s a particularly interesting time to be a Christian. Right before our eyes we see everything changing, everything we once assumed being purposefully undermined. A new normal has been thrust upon us and I don’t think I’m the only one who is looking for help in interpreting the times. These changing times, this full-out moral revolution, is the subject of Trevin Wax’s new book This Is Our Time. His …

Stop Calling Everything Hate

Over time, a word can change its meaning, sometimes picking up an entirely new definition and sometimes expanding or contracting an existing one. It is not unusual to see a familiar word explode into contemporary parlance with a far more expansive definition than it has had in the past. Think about “tolerance.” For many years the word quietly meant something like, “accepting the rights of others to have a belief different from your own.” Then, suddenly, the word was everywhere …