Silence has been an important spiritual discipline since the birth of the church. It may be more important now than ever before, for two reasons—both related (unsurprisingly) to the challenges of living in a digital age. First, the discipline of silence is so important because a digital age is also a distracted age. We carry little devices around with us that quite literally clamor for our attention. Needless to say, this will drastically inhibit our ability to…
We have a baby just learning to walk. Like all children who are taking their first steps, when she moves too fast, she stumbles. She is at her best when she is slow and deliberate, for now at least. I think the same could be said of all of us. Move too fast, and you’re liable to stumble. Slow down, think carefully, choose deliberately, and you’re likely to fare much better. Now, this isn’t a…
#FakeNews. #AlternativeFacts. There seems to be a lot of buzz these days about the media we ingest and whether or not we can opt-out of reality. For Christians, that brings with it a tremendous opportunity, as I’ll try to explain in my next post. But it also carries with it a clear and present danger. Now, I feel a bit like Jude in wading into this topic. Like him, “although I was very eager…
I have spent a lot of time in Proverbs these past few months owing to the season of life I find myself in, and the desire to grow in wisdom through it. Of course, quite a lot has happened nationally and globally during that stretch of time, including Ferguson, the midterm elections, Charlie Hebdo, and at least 60 Jay Cutler interceptions. Because I have been so immersed in Proverbs while all this transpires, it has…
I have noticed a curious phenomenon among Christians today: when it comes to sin in the church, we speak when we should remain silent, and remain silent when we should speak. If someone sins against me, causing personal offense—by which we usually mean a wounded ego—I am likely to confront the person, sharing my hurt and frustrations with him. It is almost unforgivable that someone who claims Christ as Lord could treat me in…
Jeremiah, in some of his best known words, wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” The implication to the final rhetorical question seems to be no one can understand it. And, in particular, we cannot understand our own hearts. We think we know ourselves, but our own hearts deceive us, blinding us to our real motivations, thoughts, feelings. We do not need Satan to deceive us when…
I recently had the opportunity to speak on the power of speech (ironic, I know), and offered at that time a brief “theology of teasing.” I sought to defend the notion that teasing—poking fun, irony, even sarcasm in its less technical sense[1]—can serve a life-giving purpose within the Christian community. My comments were not received favorably by everyone. So I wish now to give a fuller defense of what I only hinted at earlier. …
Writing blogs is a dangerous pastime. The trouble with writing something short is that one never gets to say all that there is to say on any subject. Instead the blogger must rest content with hinting at the fullest possible picture, while packing as much rhetorical punch as possible into a few short lines. The possibility of misspeaking or being misunderstood proves all too real. I am certain I will not succeed uniformly, but…