(OPINION) “Padre Pio” might not be for most folks. They don’t see the “hidden” knowledge of God in our being created as naked and unashamed. They instead associate all nudity with pornography. That’s because we’re a porn-saturated society. It’s estimated that 46%–74% of men and 16%–41% of women in the US are active pornography users.
Read More(OPINION) Joseph Henrich credits the Catholic Church for our WEIRD culture: Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic. But he’s not Catholic. He’s an agnostic. He’s simply describing how we became WEIRD.
Read More(OPINION) Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are good things. But DEI is like trying to change the world through law. There’s a better way: love. I think love is UEE: unity, equality and exclusions.
Read More(OPINION) Tax returns sadly say most American Christians are ungenerous, typically giving only 1.5% to 2% of their income according to an Oxford University Press book. It’s not that Christians don’t have the money but that they spend it on luxuries — with little leftover to give — while failing to perceive needs outside their own circles.
Read More(OPINION) Quantum theory can widen how we imagine the cross of Christ. Jesus did redeem us on the cross. But wondrously beautiful things happened simultaneously to his blood being shed. For instance, Jesus married (betrothed) us. In Jewish tradition, a redeemer was a male relative responsible for caring for a deceased relative’s possessions, including the widow.
Read More(OPINION) It starts with the reenchantment of the body and sexuality, extending to the entire natural world. And here I offer a suggestion for parents, especially those drawn to “purity pledge” programs. The results remind me of Jesus’ warning that merely getting clean from something rather than for something often results in the second state being worse than the first.
Read More(OPINION) Artificial intelligence technologies are bad when they become an artifice, which means contrived or false. The artifice of intelligence makes people “see only what new technologies can do and are incapable of imagining what they will undo.”
Read More(OPINION) Temple Grandin says that without a major shift in how we learn, one that values neurodivergent people and all visual thinkers, American innovation will be stifled. If you’re a Christian, that ought to be of interest to you.
Read More(OPINION) Sin and guilt remind us eros didn’t die, but it’s disfigured. It’s not ruined as Nietzsche claimed. Eros can be redeemed as it’s both/and — a virtue since God created it while a vice since we corrupted it. Human desires, including eros, are inherently very good.
Read More(OPINION) Bono, the frontman of the band U2, has published a new memoir “Surrender.” His music has been shaped by thinkers like William Blake, a poet who opposed the Enlightenment in favor of imaginative thinking. Bono also has parallels with Christian apologist and thinker C.S. Lewis.
Read More(OPINION) Disney’s motto “Discover the Magic” reminds us that we live in a post-Christian age. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis saying there are two equal and opposite errors regarding devils. One is to have an unhealthy interest in them. The other is to see nothing beyond the natural world.
Read More(OPINION) C.S. Lewis, in his lecture De Descriptione Temporum, noted that “somewhere between us and Jane Austen’s Persuasion in 1816 runs the chasm between Old Western Man and New Western Man — the Great Divide.” It represents a “vast change” between Jane Austen’s time and ours. That’s when he says the Western world entered a post-Christian age.
Read More(OPINION) We’re approaching June, Gay Pride Month. It’s a good time to get ahead of a tough topic because while many young evangelicals are returning to older church traditions, that number includes some entering the Episcopal Church — a tradition that in 2015 amended its canons regulating marriage to permit same-sex marriage. This troubles many conservative Christians.
Read More(OPINION) In Corinthians, Paul writes that when Jesus comes for his bride, the quality of our work will be revealed with fire. Therefore, the size of our cups of joy is determined by the size of our generosity here, which is formed by the marital gospel: preparing to be presented as a pure bride. Will you drink from a goblet or a thimble?
Read More(OPINION) American evangelicalism has invested most of its energy into creating a structure of “parallel institutions.” They parallel culture-shaping institutions but function below the level of these institutions’ radar, operating in an evangelical subculture of their own. But the results are often not very flattering.
Read More(OPINION) Michael Metzger writes about the relationship of Jesus' offering of the living water for purification from sin and redemption in the Lenten season.
Read More(OPINION) Michael Metzger analyzes the interpretation of the church as Christ's bride from the perspective of Jade Studdock's story, "Did we make Jesus' payment for sin the main thing on the cross?"
Read More(OPINION) In his third text on the meaning of Lent, Michael Metzger connects the church as the bride of Christ to his encounter with the Samaritan woman.
Read More(OPINION) Is the church the bride of Christ? What does this mean? Michael Metzger makes a connection between the Gettysburg Address and the salvation meaning of Jesus' birth.
Read More(OPINION) How do you look at the cross of Christ? Metzger reflects here on the meaning of Lent in the Christian faith and the importance of this period of repentance and preparation in recognition of the divine sacrifice.
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