Last year, as the University of Oregon football team whipped the Tennessee Volunteers 48-13, a Vols defensive end pled for mercy. “If you guys run two more plays at this speed, I’m going to fall over dead.” Oregon runs a no-huddle offense that’s changing football. Would it also be an effective offense for the faith…
As clocks are wound back and we watch days grow darker, my wife Kathy says my mood also seems darker these days. I think I’m in good company. Critics often asked Flannery O’Connor why her writings were so dark. She said it was the only way to be a “counterweight to the prevailing heresy” in…
Try singing The National Anthem and stopping abruptly at “through the perilous night.” It doesn’t work. We feel there’s more. It’s due to musical structure—what we feel in songs, stories, sex, seasons, and stages of life. It’s eerily everywhere, which is a reason to enjoy Halloween. C.S. Lewis said we would benefit from evoking a…
In a recent New York Times column titled, “Something’s Happening Here,” Thomas Friedman suggests “two unified theories” clear up questions about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Why only two? In the Buffalo Springfield song “Something’s Happening Here,” the next line reads: “what it is ain’t exactly clear.”
by John Seel We have to breathe—in and out. The human body cannot function by only inhaling or exhaling. In the same way, a healthy business must breathe. Sadly, many Christians don’t know what breathing is for a business. As a result, they either only inhale or exhale as healthy businesses die. This is not…
Several years ago, Christianity Today columnist Tim Stafford chided evangelical Christianity “which thrives in Houston but can’t get to first base in Manhattan.” That might no longer be the case. A new survey indicates the gospel has made impressive gains in New York City. If it can make it there, can it make it anywhere?
Economists tell us America has sufficient financial wherewithal to fix its debt problem. We have insufficient political will however. The Book of Jonah tells us why. Resolving our debt problem requires recognizing fallen human nature—not appealing to it.
Halfway home is better than being “stuck.” In October, David Kinnaman has a book coming out, titled You Lost Me. Kinnaman is president of The Barna Group, a research organization. His book focuses on young adults who have left the church and in many ways have become lost to it. Kinnaman says they are “stuck.”…
Karl Marx is dead. Long live Karl Marx. As the stock market slides and home values collapse, it’s difficult for most to decipher how “credit default swaps” and “collateralized debt obligations” contributed to the mess. A new book, Reckless Endangerment, deciphers the debacle. It also reminds us of why Karl Marx still lives.
When Europeans first set sail, they were surprised to discover their technological superiority over the rest of the world. European explorers attributed much of this to one of their inventions, the modern university. Today they’d be surprised at the inferiority of education, especially in the United States. What went wrong?