Category: Christians & Culture

Commentary, from a Biblical perspective, on current events that are primarily cultural. There may be some overlap with politics and government, but the emphasis is on broader societal developments apart from politics, which also includes analysis of specific individuals.

Chambers & Counterrevolution

More wisdom from Whittaker Chambers today. Reflecting on the sad state of society in 1925 with respect to its grasp of the dangers it was facing, he penned these poignant words: The dying world of 1925 was without faith, hope, character, understanding of its malady or will to overcome it. It was dying but it laughed. And this laughter was not the defiance of a vigor that refuses to know when it is whipped. It was the loss, by the… Read more »

Chambers: Death of a Nation?

Those who have read this blog long enough know my affinity for Whittaker Chambers, a man I consider one of the true heroes in American history. He had joined the Communist Party in the 1920s, thinking it was the answer to all the world’s crises. Only later did he come to grips with his error, but when he did, a whole new understanding opened to him. As he notes in his masterful autobiography Witness, his mind had to be renewed… Read more »

Tocqueville & American Christianity

Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman who toured America from 1831-1833, was a keen observer of what he experienced. He put those observations into a famous book, still used in political sciences courses, called Democracy in America, first published in 1835. Tocqueville quotes can be found throughout the Internet; unfortunately, some of them dealing with religion in America are more legend than fact. I know, since I’ve read the entirety of his book without finding them. However, he did make clear… Read more »

God, Reason, & C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis has popped up on this blog a number of times recently. I gave a thumbs-up to the movie Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I would like people to read more of Lewis, so I’m going to use a few of his quotes today so they will understand the depth of his meditations. For instance, I wonder how many have pondered the issue of objective moral law vs. subjectivism. Here’s Lewis on that topic: The very idea of… Read more »

Unrenewed Minds

I don’t stun easily anymore. Yet, last Friday, while attending the commencement ceremony at my university, one of my faculty colleagues did stun me with a bit of information. We were talking about the current generation and the influences on their lives. He noted that in his classes, he asks students what they consider their main source for learning about politics and the issues of the day. He reported that the majority answered—Comedy Central. In other words, this generation looks… Read more »

The Dawn Treader . . . & Beyond

I saw Voyage of the Dawn Treader last night. In preparation for it, I watched The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and Prince Caspian earlier this week. It’s a great way to fill a week. Watching these films took me back to the first time I read The Chronicles of Narnia. They were actually some of the last Lewis works I tackled, probably because I wasn’t attracted to the idea of spending my time with children’s books. Yet, once… Read more »

Philosophy & the Christian

From the pen of Christian apologist Francis Schaeffer, who taught me a lot in my early years of trying to grasp the foundations of the faith: The first meaning [of philosophy] is a discipline, an academic subject. That is what we usually think of as philosophy: a highly technical study which few people pursue. In this sense, few people are philosophers. But there is a second meaning that we must not miss if we are going to understand the problem… Read more »