Featured Essay / Culture
For years Rod Dreher (senior editor at The American Conservative) has been writing about his “Benedict Option.” Now his book of the same title has finally appeared. To be honest, I have not been convinced by his articles addressing the Benedict Option and his book fails to convince me too.…
Essay / Culture
The New York Times called Strunk & White’s Elements of Style “as timeless as a book can be in our age of volubility.” It is a strong book, written with the same economy and sturdiness it calls forth from would-be writers. It is even a delight to read, at
Essay / Art
One of the first things you’ll notice if you visit Biola University’s campus is our Jesus Mural, “The Word.” It’s iconic for us, our evangelical counterpart to Notre Dame’s “Touchdown Jesus.” It’s huge–27 feet tall–and all the more significant as it stands in the middle
Essay / Blog
I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns; the ground was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down. Then I saw and considered it; I looked
Essay / Culture
Professor Greg Peters examines the “new monastics” a decade on from their emergence into Christian life over at First Things: The new monasticism, characterized by Robin Russell as individuals and families who “commit to follow a ‘rule of life’ . . . and they immerse
Essay / Blog
See the first part of this discussion here. As an African-American, third-culture adult teaching in an honors program at a predominantly white Christian institution of higher learning, married to a white American with a blended (bi-racial) daughter, I think about race a lot. I’ve been
Essay / Blog
The last few weeks have involved lots of conversations about ethnicity, racial reconciliation, white identity, micro-aggressions, locs, Trayvon Martin, bi-racial children, “other”-ness, post-racial America, racism in Christianity, interracial dating, and a host of conversations about how to have these conversations. This may sound overwhelming, but
Essay / Blog
So often we talk about being responsible for ourselves. But responsibility is not limited to ourselves alone. Being responsible demands a willingness to speak the truth to others when necessary. Consider David when he was at the zenith of his reign as King of Israel.
Essay / Culture
Matt Perman’s book What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done is finally available. I’ve been looking forward to this book for a long time, and am glad to report that it lives up to the high hopes I’ve had
Essay / Culture
Lots of people these days are going liturgical. Really, that’s not quite the right way to put it. All churches are liturgical, in so far as their worship of the Lord takes on a form and has an order to it. But you know what
Essay / Culture
According to St. Benedict of Nursia the Christian life should always be a continuous Lent. According to Sts. Wal-Mart, Target and Starbucks autumn should always be a continuous Christmas. One would have to be truly deaf and blind not to notice that Christmas decorations are
Essay / Art
Instrumental Christmas: The Sanders household just wasn’t in the mood for the all-out onslaught of the familiar Christmas music in the early days of this December, so we put together a set of wordless wonders, and we sought out as many unfamiliar tunes as possible.
Essay / Blog
By far my favorite story about the celebration of Christmas is the Christmas truce of 1914. On the night of December 24th, entrenched and fully engaged in deadly combat, German soldiers in Ypres began to observe Christmas festivities. They lit candles, decorated a tree, and began