Tolstoy knew something about shalom that many churches don’t. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond cites the famous first sentence of Tolstoy’s great novel Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Diamond goes on to write, “By that sentence, Tolstoy meant that, in order to…
So, Eve… how does this apply? The Bible equates sex with knowledge, as in “Adam knew Eve” (Gen. 4:1). Do you think Adam asked Eve afterward: So, Eve… how does this apply to our life? If this is how knowledge is gained, why do we talk about “applying principles to our life?” Could it be…
Seeing is believing. The best way to believe in shalom is to see it in Solomeo. Solomeo is a small hilltop village in a mountainous region called Umbria, north of Rome. It is where Brunello Cucinelli and his family make their home. It is also where his company makes high-end cashmere sweaters and other luxury…
Love isn’t blind, but it’s often nearsighted. It’s part of what makes marriages work, as in “I only have eyes for you.” But it can make institutions resist paradigm shifts, for when they only have eyes for what they love, they tend to only be nearsighted. This seems to be the case in three modern…
In 1954 Ted Williams batted .345, topping Cleveland’s Bobby Avila, who hit .341. But Williams didn’t win the batting title. He didn’t have enough plate appearances. Baseball measures consistency as well as connecting. If the same holds true for the Christian faith, this raises a troubling question: why are we so inconsistent in church attendance?
With Justice John Paul Stevens’ retirement, the last Protestant leaves the Supreme Court. Where have all the Protestants gone, especially in our country’s leading institutions? The answer is that modern Protestantism is the anti-institution institution.
Buzz easily becomes a bastard. In the 1970s, GM’s market share was slipping. Diesel fuel was cheap, so GM got buzzed about diesel engines. It slapped diesel parts on Oldsmobile’s V-8 engines. It was a bastard design with disastrous results. We might see the same result with the release of James Hunter’s To Change the…
My first encounter with a swimming pool was terrifying. It happened at the old YWCA in what is today a ghost town—Flint, Michigan. The building looked like the Roman catacombs. The pool was in the basement, deep in the crypt. The water was clean, but sure looked murky to us neophytes. Diving in meant descending…
“My church is a safe place.” “Safe” is popular in the American church. But “safe” is not popular in the Bible. It’s not part of historic Christianity. In fact, “safe” is a siren song. Sailors drawn to siren songs are not safe. They risk shipwreck. “Safe” churches run the same risk.
When you hear yada yada, do you say Yikes? From 1989 to 1998, Seinfeld introduced iconic idioms such as “Master of My Domain” and “Not that there’s anything wrong with that…” Created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the show was a fictionalized version of Jerry’s life with friends Elaine Benes, George Costanzo, and Cosmo…