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.

Lewis’s “Poison of Subjectivism” in Our Day

  

Subjectivism: the belief that moral judgments are statements concerning the emotional or mental reactions of the individual or the community. In other words, we make up our own morality without any reference to an outside, objective authority, i.e., God. Subjectivism has become rampant in most of what used to be called Christian civilization. Moreover, those who, as a recent president infamously remarked, “cling to their religion,” are pressured, by law, to violate their consciences and accept the new ideas of… Read more »

No Winner in Alabama

  

The Alabama Senate race is finally over, and the result was a foregone conclusion: there is no winner. No matter who was going to come out on top, it would be a loss for America. The ostensible winner, Democrat Doug Jones, is a far-left radical who doesn’t believe there is any right to life until a baby comes out of the womb. He is an Alabama anomaly who never had a hope of winning this Senate seat until Republicans chose… Read more »

Lewis: Promiscuity’s Women Victims

  

Sometimes when I’m wondering what C. S. Lewis post to write on Saturdays, I turn to an excellent compilation of his works, The Quotable Lewis, edited by Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root. Often it sparks further thoughts on one of Lewis’s insights. This morning, I happened upon a relevant Lewis quote from his essay “We Have No Right to Happiness,” which he wrote near the end of his life. While 1963 may seem to be a long time ago to… Read more »

When We Subordinate Righteousness to Political Expediency

  

For twenty-eight years I’ve taught history at the university level, with some of those years being in a master’s program of public policy/government. Consistently, I’ve tried to communicate the message that Christians ought to be involved in the political sphere. One of the first books I wrote, If the Foundations Are Destroyed: Biblical Principles and Civil Government, was an attempt to lay out basic Biblical concepts that should undergird all of life, including government. In that book, I pointed out… Read more »

An Exclusivity Available for All

  

I’m an exclusivist. That doesn’t sound good, does it? If someone says that, the image of “elitist,” “snob,” or “self-righteous” might present itself to the mind of whoever hears such a statement. Yet I’m an exclusivist without being any of those other things. In fact, God calls us to attach ourselves to His exclusivity. The Christian faith is an exclusive faith. It makes the outrageous statement (outrageous to those who don’t like to hear it) that there is no other… Read more »

Sexual Harassment: The Christian Response?

  

What began with Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein has turned into a daily report of the latest sexual harasser: Roy Moore (I’ll come back to him further down in this post); Al Franken; Charlie Rose; a New York Times reporter I don’t know; indications of a $17 million slush fund to bail out congressmen who are accused of sexual improprieties. That last one is the news I woke up to today. Democrat Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, who has been in… Read more »

Life Has Never Been Normal: Lewis on War

  

World War I devastated Europe and decimated the male populations of Britain and France. C. S. Lewis served in that war, even though, having grown up in Northern Ireland, he wasn’t required to do so. In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he doesn’t spend a lot of time describing his wartime experience, but what he does relate is striking: The war—the frights, the cold, . . . the horribly smashed men still moving like half-crushed beetles, the sitting or standing… Read more »