Featured Essay / Culture
A friend and I had a conversation about a situation of systemic and personal abuse she was suffering, which turned into correspondence between us. With permission, I have polished up my exchange with Lori (a pseudonym), as a reflection on what it means for a victim to properly love a…
Essay / Culture
The problem with boundaries is that they serve too often to keep people out, rather than to keep people in. Insider/outsider, or ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ language too often threatens to undermine a gospel which is about an ever-expanding ‘us’ group. Furthermore, it tends to seduce
Essay / Culture
As part of an ongoing series of posts on emerging churches, I’m going to look at a few emergent allergies — things that get emerging churches itching and scratching and threaten to leave an embarrassing rash. As I noted in a previous post, the early
Essay / Culture
I’ve just finished up co-teaching a class on ‘Readings in Emerging Church Theology’ with Ron Benefiel at Nazarene Theological Seminary. What a joy to be talking church, theology and ministry with pastors-in-training! Too many conversations on this subject begin, ‘What exactly is the emerging church?’
Essay / Culture
Read Part I here, and Part II here. One final method for practicing silence and solitude is what I call a ‘solitude retreat’. (3) Once or twice a year, go alone on a solitude retreat from 9 am one day until 5 pm the next
Essay / Culture
Read Part I here, and Part III here. Two regular practices of solitude and silence: First, you must remember that when you go into solitude and silence, your basic goal is to do nothing. Yes, nothing! You are to center yourself in quiet and rest.
Essay / Culture
Read Part II here, and Part III here. Throughout his writings and lectures, Dallas Willard has warned that the hardest thing to get North American people to do is nothing. The regular practice of doing nothing is crucial for spiritual growth. It keeps us from
Essay / Culture
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that the average stay at home mother if she were paid for her work would earn $138,095 a year. This seems like too low of a number. Women who stay at home are in total charge of the household which in
Essay / Culture
Yesterday, Dr. John Mark Reynolds posted a letter that he had written to a student who was attempting to make a choice between Biola University and UC Berkeley. Parents should think through the implications of a university choice, and should consider what is the proper
Essay / Culture
J.P. Moreland, 2007. I am excited to announce the publication of my new book, Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian Mind, Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit’s Power. This is the book I’ve been waiting all my life to write. For thirty-six years I have tried
Essay / Culture
In Part I, we saw that there is a biblically and scientifically important distinction between discursive thought (associated with the brain) and emotional intuitive awareness (associated with the heart). We also saw that a major cause of anxiety and depression is obsessive thinking about an
Essay / Culture
Read Part II here. I once heard a Christian psychologist say that we were made to live in a camel culture—slow-paced, relational and no electric lights to keep people up beyond sundown and deprive them of the eight and one half hours of sleep they
Essay / Art
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) is so hard to read that every class session on his poetry might just as well start with the question, “Why bother reading something so difficult?” I think you have to start by admitting that poetry this difficult actually might not