content warning: discussion of sexual assault ..read more

In what has become a hackneyed cliche to use for graduation speeches, Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken,” is often read as the pinnacle of personal choice. I’d like to think about it in terms of imaginative formation. Here it is ..read more

The present “crisis of masculinity” has its origins in ongoing confusion about what a man is. It also involves the contemporary angst of men, especially young men,with a sense of lack of purpose or vision they have for their lives. What does it mean for a young man to “make something” of himself? Is there a reliable and general script men can follow that will guide them towards maturation and meaning ..read more

David Bahnsen, Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life (New York: Post Hill Press). 208 pp. $24, cloth.  I sometimes tell people, when recommending that they read A Severe Mercy, that they should know the book presents as a love story but, in reality, it is actually a conversion story. If you understand that going in, your whole experience of the book will be better. A similar comment might apply to David Bahnsen's Full Time: Work and the Meaning of Life. If you take the book to be a reflection on work, you're only getting part of the story. Really the book is a vindication of ..read more

In the Screwtape Letters, the senior tempter Screwtape admonishes Wormwood about the danger of tempting humans with pleasure. He tells his devilish understudy, “Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s ground. . . He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one.” C.S. Lewis’s imagined letters from Screwtape coaching Wormwood on how best to tempt an individual so that he will not fall into the hands of “the enemy” (i.e. Christ) communicate powerful insights int ..read more

Years ago, I visited an Anglican church while visiting some friends out of town. I had just started working  as the children’s director at the Anglican church I attended back home, so in addition to attending worship with the adults that Sunday morning, I spent some time following the children around to see what I could see. The children at this particular church had the traditional classrooms with the tables and chairs, circle time rug, dress-up, etc ..read more

Sarah McCammon, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church (New York: St. Martin's Press). 320 pp. $30.00 cloth.   ..read more

I. One of my favorite scenes in the Coen brothers’ film The Big Lebowski is when Walter and the Dude walk across the bowling alley parking lot moments after Walter has threatened a competing bowler at gun point for stepping over the lane line. The Dude explains to Walter that Sparky is a pacifist and kind of fragile. Walter replies that he himself also dabbled with pacifism at one time. Seated in the vehicle Walter waves off the accusation as “water under the bridge” since their team is through to the round-robin anyway. “Am I wrong?!”, asks Walter repeatedly. “No, no, you’re not wrong, Walte ..read more

For a brief moment last week my home state was in the news ..read more

As depictions of contemporary moral reflection go, I doubt we'll find anything more accurate or chilling than the finale of The Good Place. To briefly summarize, the episode wraps up a several season run in which the protagonists start out in Hell, though they are led to believe they're in Heaven before earning their way into Heaven, as it were. The final episodes of the series take place in Paradise, showing how the characters adjust to their perfected place ..read more