COMMENTARY

Clapham Institute Blog

Welcome to the Clapham Institute Blog. You may have followed us previously at doggieheadtilt.com or come across us through a corporate event, church gathering, or online outreach. However you arrived here, we're glad to have you. If you have any questions about the content we're presenting, please feel free to reach out to us at any time.

Eye of the Beholder

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So are interpretations of survey results apparently. Different groups often translate them in different ways. Consider how USA Today and Christianity Today interpret a recent Pew survey on religion.

A Supporter of Memory

Brunello Cucinelli makes sense of business by being “a great supporter of memory.” Scripture encourages us to be advocates for remembering the right things. Cucinelli seems to, which is why the “king of cashmere” sees how business ought to be.

Thinking About Numbers The Right Way

Aaron Hurst believes that, in 20 years, the pursuit of purpose is likely to eclipse other models, such as the Information Economy. Maybe—but it would require thinking about numbers the right way. And that would require the right infrastructure.

Scarce Resources

Three Chicago-area professors are using economics to show why some stories fail to hold listeners’ attention. Great stories leverage “scarce resources.” That’s worth considering, as scripture features the same resources but few sermons do.

Apostle to the New Copernicans?

Two millennia ago, a highly educated Jew became the apostle to the Gentiles. Are we now seeing another Jewish leader, also well educated, sort of serving as an apostle—except this time to the New Copernicans?

Millennial-like

Zipcar’s target audience is millennials. Yet the median age of its members globally is 36—decidedly non-millennial. That’s why Zipcar has altered its ideas about generations in general. That’s good news. This shift aligns with the Bible’s take on generations.

A Risky Faith

New research indicates that when God is included in a project or sales pitch, people take risks they might otherwise not. That’s encouraging yet odd, given that Alan Hirsch says the American faith community practices a “risk-averse Christianity.”

Eight-Year-Olds

Major League Baseball is speeding up the game to hold fan interest. Speeding up is old news, however. The church is supposed to speed the return of the Lord. But the approach it uses lately seems to yield believers with the attention span of an eight-year-old.

Backdrops

Next year’s NCAA Final Four promises plenty of air balls and scoring droughts. The problem is poor backdrops. Poor backdrops create poor depth perceptions—a problem that today extends well beyond basketball.

Three Hours?

The Viagra commercial includes a warning. If you experience a certain condition lasting over four hours, call a doctor. The Passion Week suggests it might be closer to three.