On writing, books, tech, and faith
From Matthew Lee Anderson: "[...] the attempt to ‘accommodate’ the Tiktok-ification of our college intellectual culture does young people a grave disservice. Young people desperately need the difficulty of long, hard, boring books. They need large tomes, much more than they need efforts to capture their attention that try to outdo the TikTok videos they … Continue reading TikTok Versus Long, Hard, Boring Books
Sometimes I think about a response I received after telling someone about heaven. We had been discussing how we talk to our kids about death (which sounds morbid, but as all parents know, children are remarkably candid about these matters), and I mentioned that the story I share with my children is entirely shaped by … Continue reading Christianity Doesn’t Work That Way
David French summarizes a tension I often feel between my faith and my politics: "I’ve always been conservative. In the left versus right context, I’ve always considered myself a man of the right—the Reagan right. But when the extremes grow more extreme, and the classical liberal structure of the American republic is under intellectual and … Continue reading The Involuntary Moderate
“Bitterness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” ~Joanna Weaver There is nothing so easy in the world as finding angry people on the Internet. They are in comments and posts, videos and memes, comics and photos, essays and tweets. And partly for good reason: there are awful things happening … Continue reading Bitterness, Wrath, and the Problem with Biblical Counselors
As theologian Don Carson points out, the church does not consist of natural friends; it consists of natural enemies. It is not a social club for dewy-eyed companions but a broken community of individuals who need help. There is therefore a certain sense in which one should *expect* conflict in a church---and to be extremely wary when there is none.
Jemar Tisby has done the church a great service in documenting its pattern of racism during key epochs in American history and showing a way towards repentance and institutional reform. This isn't just a historical survey of the distant past but of events as recent as Black Lives Matter and the election of Trump. At the very least, Tisby's analysis ought to prompt Christians to critically examine how racism manifests in their midst in subtle ways today, and determine how to fight it.
"The heartbeat of anti-racism is confession, is admission, is acknowledgement, is the willingness to be vulnerable," says Ibram Kendi in a recent podcast with Brene Brown. He is not making a religious argument, and yet his argument is drenched in religious rhetoric.
Getting through this bloody pandemic is hard. We need endurance: what David Brooks calls "the knowledge that the only way out is through and whatever must be borne will be borne."
C.S. Lewis once wrote that surrendering yourself is the only way to find your true self. It's a true and inspiring sentiment which, unfortunately for Christians, is diametrically opposed to just about everything a culture bent on consumerism and expressive individualism stands for.
What is courage, and how do we get more of it to face the difficult days ahead? Insights from sci-fi, art, and social activism.
Richard Rabil, Jr. 