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.

Good Intuitions

Stephen Hawking died March 14th at his home in Cambridge, England. He was 76. Some of his intuitions remind us that everyone gets part of the story right.

Festivus Minimus

“The trick is not to arrange a festival,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche, “but to find people who can enjoy it.” He recognized we live in an age of pseudo-festivals.

Extraordinary Ordinary Lives

Some see sacred/secular as good/bad. In the lives of two famous runners, Roger Bannister and Eric Liddell, we’re reminded it’s a false dichotomy.

Early Returns

Roughly 80 percent of teens in evangelical church youth groups will abandon the faith after two years in college. Might seem like a dark trend, but John Seel sees hope.

Honeycombed

You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Frederick Douglass, a Marylander, learned this from the Clapham circle. I’m a Marylander. I need to learn this lesson.

Is This Fun?

Nick Foles, this year’s Super Bowl MVP, wants to be a youth pastor when he retires. What would you advise Nick to advise youth who want to play football?

The Centre That Holds

“The centre cannot hold” is how William Butler Yeats described the world in 1919. He was right about the world but wrong about the centre. The right one can hold.

Some Concrete Ideas

A reader last week asked for concrete ideas on how churches could collaborate. I have a few. So does a friend of mine, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy—an institution that instills collaboration.

Our Ticket In

In business, diversity and inclusion is overused and nearly meaningless. It’s a problem the faith community could help solve. But we’d have to recognize our ticket in.

Rays of Hope

Critics claim time spent on Facebook is harmful. Mark Zuckerberg takes this seriously. He’s changed Facebook’s mission to promote “time well spent.” That’s a ray of hope.