Exploring Books, Life, and Writing
A publishing colleague of mine who worked with our book printers was fond of telling me, “With all the things that can go wrong in producing a book, it’s amazing the ink ever hits the page.”
What’s true for printers is true in spades for writers. With so many reasons for writer’s block it’s a miracle anyone writes anything.
Continue reading “Cracking the Writer’s Block 1: Fear, Success and Life”
When Gianfranco Becchina offered to sell an ancient statue to the Getty Museum for $10 million in 1983, the Getty conducted extensive (even microscopic) analysis before agreeing to buy. Afterward a few experts on viewing the statue had instantaneous misgivings, though they had a hard time articulating exactly why. Yet the gut reactions were right and the time-consuming analysis was wrong. The statue eventually proved to be a fake.
Continue reading “Intuition, Snap Judgments and Gut Reactions”
What would it be like for white Americans to be second-class citizens in their own country? What if we had to accommodate ourselves to a dominant culture that wasn’t native to us? What if we had to negotiate different values, different customs, different ways of speaking, and a lower economic status than we are used to–all with the vague fog of inferiority hanging over us constantly as we and others compare us to a superior race? What would it be like? How would it feel?
Continue reading “The Man in the High Castle”
One of the most significant passages in one of the most significant books for the church in the last fifty years is this:
What were we made for? To know God.
What aim should we set ourselves in life? To know God
What is the “eternal life” that Jesus gives? Knowledge of God. “This is eternal
life: that they may know you, the only true god, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3).
What is the best thing in life bringing more joy, delight and contentment than
anything else? Knowledge of God. “This is what the Lord says: ‘Let not the wise
man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me’ ” (Jer 9:23-24).*
My wife murders clichés. But because these are unpremeditated, we should probably reduce the charges to manslaughter.
Continue reading “I’ll Have a Cliché with a Twist, Please”
I told them it was okay to be mad at God. Afterward I got a phone call.
I spoke to over a hundred college students about the book of Ruth. After Naomi’s husband and two sons died in Moab, she told her daughters-in-law (Ruth and Orpah) not go back to Israel with her “because the LORD’s hand has turned against me!” On her return Namoi told the women in her hometown, “Don’t call me Naomi. . . . Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter” (Ruth 1:13, 20).
Continue reading “Getting Mad at God”
Augustine, the great church father, has been such a giant on the theological landscape for so many centuries, he has become a huge, lifeless statue to some. In The Mestizo Augustine Justo González pumps life back into our view with a fresh and fascinating look at the humanity and the competing cultures at work within Augustine.
Continue reading “What Augustine Offers Our Multicultural World”
It seems obligatory these days to begin any discussion of sex and society with autobiography. So here goes. I’m an old, white, heterosexual male who basically doesn’t have a clue when it comes to understanding gender dysphoria. (But I guess the second half of that sentence was redundant with the first half.) That’s why I appreciated psychologist Mark Yarhouse’s book, Understanding Gender Dysphoria, so much.
Continue reading “Understanding Gender Dysphoria”
I have lived with the New Testament letter of James for many decades. And I frequently puzzled over one aspect of a particular verse: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (Jas 1:27) Why widows and orphans? Why not people who are hungry or ill or grieving? Is there something special about orphans and widows that should take our attention?
Continue reading “Widows and Orphans”
God is active in all cultures around the world, even before Christianity or the Bible reach them. That’s what William Dyrness contends in Insider Jesus (which I discussed here). If he is right, the implications go far beyond missionary efforts. They encompass how we should view our own faith.
Continue reading “Insider Jesus 2: Did the Reformation Make a Misstep?”