When I give talks based on Desiring the Kingdom, I often revisit my analysis of the mall as a consumerist cathedral. The concreteness and universality of the experience is usually a helpful entrée into the core concepts of my liturgical analysis of culture. A couple of resources to add to that analysis: When I was…
Though I come from a people who made their living with their hands, I make my living with words. So when I need to work something out, or work through something, I don’t go chop wood or tinker with a ’67 Chevelle, I write. So be forewarned: therapeutic musings ahead. This is our house. Or…
I get this question a lot. And now, instead of just pointing people to The Colossian Forum Manifesto or other articulations of our mission and vision, I can point them to a concrete embodiment of what we’re trying to foster: a charitable, respectful conversation between young earth creationist Todd Wood and evolutionary creationist Dennis Venema. See…
Mark Oppenheimer can’t fathom what a “Christian sociology” would be, as evidenced by his odd piece on the recent controversy swirling around Mark Regnerus’ study of the children of gay & lesbian parents. Published in today’s New York Times, Oppenheimer raises questions about “the role of faith in scholarship.” Oppenheimer clearly approaches the matter with…
On October 11, 2012 I presented the Meeter Center Lecture, “‘Lift Up Your Hearts’: John Calvin’s Catholic Faith.” (It was a delicious irony that I was delivering this talk on Calvin’s Catholic faith on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Vatican II–when the Roman church finally began listening to him!) I’m making the talk…
I’ve noticed a different sensibility amongst Christian philosophers of my generation–we who are heirs to some of the path-breakers like Plantinga and Wolterstorff and Mavrodes and others. For someone like Plantinga, Christian theism makes a difference for our philosophizing. There are unique convictions, knowledge, and perspectives rooted in Christian revelation that generate unique philosophical accounts (of…