Is Technology Neutral?
After conversing with a 22-year-old following a service, I realized my mistake. I had used iPods in a sermon illustration as a point-of-contact with my twenty-first century, media-saturated congregation. Yet the young man disagreed—“I don’t think most of them knew what you were talking about”—and he was right. I remembered that over half my congregation was 65+ years old. Few iPod owners were in my midst. Though many Americans today...
Assessing the Arts
Essay by Alexandra Harper with W. Jackson Watts Walking through an art gallery can be an intimidating experience. It is not due to a distaste for art that this feeling necessarily arises, but because we simply don’t understand it. For one, art education sits so low on our society’s totem pole of educational priorities. When school budgets are cut, art and music are often the first areas eliminated. Yet for Christians today the issue...
The Scandal of Singleness
Sometimes others know us better than we know ourselves. Though the world sees through a darkened lens, occasionally it observes something in Christians worth considering. Recently, a New York Times has done just that in exploring the bias in evangelicalism against hiring unmarried pastors [1]. Erik Eckholm recounts the case of one experienced pastor unable to find work after searching since 2009. According to Eckholm, most evangelical...
Rethinking Persecution
Christianity speaks to the entire range of human experience. It not only provides the content of our views of God, but it also guides our moral decision-making. It offers an account of a well-ordered family, a well-ordered church, and a well-ordered life. Ultimately, it speaks to the transformation of all creation by God. Our faith demands that we not only affirm these truths, but that we herald them to the world. The Scriptures refer...
First Things for Christian Apologists
For centuries Christians have believed in the need to give a reason for the hope within. Apologetics (the defense and articulation of Christian truth) has produced a great heritage of theological and philosophical resources. In the wake of the legacies of C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer, many have taken up this mantel with remarkable zeal. Apologetics texts burgeoned in the late twentieth century, along with institutes, courses, and...
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