Reaching Teenagers Who Don’t Care: Apologetics for the Indifferent
In previous generations in the United States, the apologetic question may have been framed as one of authority: “who says?” Apologetics in youth ministry, in response, gave attention to the reliability and authority of the Bible. Those in youth ministry focused on topics like inerrancy and textual reliability. In the current generation, the question may be one of relevance: “who cares?” We find ourselves not so much faced with...
Reflecting on Fifteen Years of the Helwys Society Forum
Because 2025, as of this past February, marks fifteen years for the Helwys Society Forum (HSF), we thought it suitable to reflect on our work. In this post, the three longest-tenured contributors offer their reflections: Matthew Steven Bracey, Jesse F. Owens, and Phillip T. Morgan. Matthew Steven Bracey When I reflect on the HSF, I am filled with gratitude. Firstly, I am grateful to the HSF because through it I have learned to think...
Growing Flax: An Expression of Culture Making
Where do clothes come from? This simple question has a simple answer on its face. The main four natural fibers are wool, silk, linen, and cotton. How those fibers become fabric is far more complicated than I previously realized. I have little experience with wool, silk, or cotton. However, I am learning how to work with flax. Flax is a strong, fibrous plant that, when harvested and processed, becomes linen thread. My goal is to follow...
A Review of The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis
As an enthusiastic, though occasional, listener of The Literary Life podcast, I was intrigued by Jason M. Baxter’s several interviews and subsequent work with the podcast’s sister-school providing literary education online, the House of Humane Letters. A Dante scholar and professor at Benedictine College, Baxter has recently written an accessible work on the literary influences that shaped the mind and writing of C. S. Lewis. I read...
Why Care About Theology Amid Cultural Crisis?
During the Great Depression, the Presbyterian theologian J. Gresham Machen was troubled to find that some Christians were downplaying the importance of teaching the gospel in favor of focusing on people’s physical needs (food, housing, clothing, education, etc.). Certainly, the concern for people’s physical needs is noble, reminding us of the book of James. But Machen realized that, while Christians must care about and seek to meet...
John R. Gower and the Culture of Turn-of-the-Century Free Will Baptists (2/3)
In a previous post, I gave a brief biographical sketch of the Free Will Baptist farmer-preacher John R. Gower, who served in the Cumberland Association in Middle Tennessee during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this essay, we will explore how the cultural context of Gower’s life informs our understanding of the temperance movement in the Cumberland Association specifically and among Southern Free Will Baptists...
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