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.

Hall of Mirrors

In The Dark Knight Returns graphic novel, the Joker lures Batman into a hall of mirrors. His plan is cunning – disorient and destroy. Last week, we looked at how the West has become a culture that leads-with-the-left-hemisphere. It’s lost in a hall of mirrors according to Iain McGilchrist. It’s not a good situation, but…

Puppy Love

Last week I promised to pose a question. Here it is. In Genesis 2:19-20, we read that Adam named the animals. How do you imagine he did this? What image comes to mind? Your answer indicates which hemisphere in your brain is presently winning.

The Wrong Winner

The wrong winner has won. Iain McGilchrist says the human brain’s two hemispheres are waging a winner-take-all contest. But only one hemisphere – if it wins – includes the other in the triumph. The other hemisphere doesn’t. Unfortunately, over the last 500 years, the wrong hemisphere has won the contest.

Languid Day

Labor Day is a languid sort of affair. It’s a melancholy weekend – the last summer cookout… pulling in the dock… putting away the boat. Labor Day was originally a tribute to industriousness. What happened to that?

First Things First

by John Seel If you make secondary things primary, you lose both. C.S. Lewis put it this way: “You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.” Such has been our failure in the marriage debate. By debating the definition of marriage, we have…

Is Springsteen Right on Income Inequality?

by Hugh Whelchel All-American rocker Bruce Springsteen took to the pages of Rolling Stone magazine this past spring to lament the existence of income inequality in our country today: “You cannot have a social contract with the enormous income disparity — you’re going to slice the country down the middle. It’s not going to hold.”

Do the Math

It was 20 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play. Not really. It was 50 years ago, during the summer of 1962. Over the course of 300 nights the Beatles mastered their music. Their success raises a serious question however. When you do the math, how will many Christians ever get enough…

Hoisted On Our Own Petard

In 1999, evangelicals were enraged when Joshua Davey was deemed ineligible for state aid. The irony is the courts cited statutory prohibitions Protestant evangelicals had put in place over a century before. They were hoisted on their own petard.

Dead Ends

The end of July marks the calm before the political storm. In the United States, the presidential election promises to be rather contentious. Both parties have markedly different versions of what’s wrong and how to go forward. However, hubris might cloud both visions. We might actually be facing dead ends.

Zombies

World-record-holding swimmer Ryan Lochte recently admitted he made a big mistake in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. “I had a girlfriend.” Lochte says he’s single now, “so London should be really good.” Not true. Olympic athletes trolling for sex might be an unfamiliar story, but it’s not good. It puts the games at risk of disappearing…