Resident Theologian
About the Blog
How the world sees the church
A reflection on the church’s reputation. Should we expect or hope for our nonbelieving neighbors to think well of us? To see us as good news?
I’m in Mere O on church and culture
My latest essay, “Once More, Church and Culture,” is in the new issue of Mere Orthodoxy.
Once more, negative world
A response to Alan Jacobs’ response to my response (and others’) to Aaron Renn’s “Three Worlds” framework.
Double literacy loss, 2
A few more reflections following my previous post on the double loss of literacy in young people today: that is, the loss of ambient or default biblical literacy together with the loss of literal literacy, by which I mean the well-developed habits, eager interest, and requisite attention for sustained personal reading—of anything at all.
Needing Jesus
Start with a man. A young man, to be more specific. He lives in a small but well-furnished apartment in a gentrified neighborhood of Austin (or Chicago, or Brooklyn, or Portland). He’s 26. He’s single, he’s got friends, and he works a reasonably well-paying job with a tech start-up, a consulting firm, or perhaps a non-profit. He eats good food, reads good books, listens to good music. In general he’s a nice guy. He’s not a jerk. He recycles. He has reliably soft-progressive opinions. He voted for Bernie then for Biden. You’d enjoy his presence if you spent an evening with him.
The Book of Strange New Things, 3
So I don’t think Michel Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things works. Its lead is unbelievable; the prose is unmemorable to a fault; the payoffs meant to explain the eerie human and mental atmosphere on the alien planet are unsatisfactory, and call in turn for further explanations that are never forthcoming.
What works, if anything? A few things.