What’s with all the Christian tattoos? Am I missing out?

March 8, 2013 By 34 Comments
Cross tattoos

I used to want a tattoo. That was more than twenty years ago, back in high school when only the brave and cool and rebellious people got tattoos. Back then a neck tat meant you were hardcore. Today it means you're a 19-year-old sorority girl. I never did get the tattoo. I couldn't make up my mind what I wanted to permanently etch on my epidermal canvas. Or what part of the canvas I would use. Something public? Or something I could cover up so my boss didn't think I was secretly the chief … [Read more...]

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The Bible, clear as mud

January 10, 2013 By 19 Comments
The Bible, clear as mud

Peering through the most recent edition of the peerless Books and Culture, I came across a three-quarter page ad for Beeson Divinity School. Forgive me, but I don't think this ad works for an evangelical institution. What does it say about the perspicuity of Scripture, for instance, that the commentaries are in focus and the Bible is clear as mud? "We believe the Bible is God's word written," says the ad copy (not pictured above). "It is therefore fully trustworthy and able to teach us … [Read more...]

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The good-natured Dave Brubeck

December 6, 2012 By 2 Comments
Monterey Jazz Festival

Since the passing this week of jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, I've kept returning to his music throughout the day. A track from which I've taken particular pleasure is "For All We Know," a slow but swinging song played by the Dave Brubeck Quartet at the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival. The annual festival is still a going concern today, but that inaugural year was tricky. The organizers were unable to secure the permits required to keep the planes flying in and out of Monterey's airport from … [Read more...]

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How the Lord’s Prayer brought Dave Brubeck to the church

December 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Brubeck, 1972. Heinrich Klaffs, Wikimedia Commons.

Jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck died earlier today at ninety-one, just a day shy of his ninety-second birthday. Known for his ability to make magic happen with unconventional meters, Brubeck leaves behind a hefty catalogue of amazing jazz. Albums like Time Out and Jazz Impressions of Japan continue to impress on the hundredth listen as much as they surprised on the first. What some may not know is that Brubeck also leaves behind several wonderful sacred compositions. (His obituary … [Read more...]

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Various and sundry No. 1

November 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Various and Sundry

1 Don't do it this way. Frank Viola has a worthwhile post on avoiding certain pitfalls in your Christian walk. But -- and this is fun -- he presents it all in the negative, offering 10 things you can do to ensure you blow it. "Rarely (or never) read books with spiritual depth or listen to Christ-centered messages by other servants of God," he says for one. "Forget the contribution of the body of Christ, past and present. Throw out spiritual education. Live under the delusion that all you … [Read more...]

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Things I’m pretty sure are true

November 17, 2011 By 11 Comments
things I'm pretty certain are true

Many are the authors who have assembled lists of various undeniable truths and irrefutable laws. I'm less sure about these ones, but here's my list of things -- some discovered through ample trial and much error -- that I'm pretty certain are true: If your Christianity doesn't leave a mark, then you're doing it wrong. If you don't discipline yourself, others will. If you don't learn from history, you're like most people. To affirm one thing is to negate many others. To speak at … [Read more...]

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The kindergarten rules

November 4, 2011 By 16 Comments
kindergarten rules

Here are some lessons you're supposed to learn as a child that will definitely serve you when you're older: Don't touch that. Say please. Use your words. Say your prayers. Don't beat up the little guys; they might grow up bigger than you. Play nice. If you break the rules, it won't go well. When you've done something wrong, you should go to your room and think about what you've done. Don't sit with your stinky stuff too long; it'll cause a rash. You're not as clever as you … [Read more...]

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My broken foot

October 19, 2010 By 16 Comments
X-ray of foot

I’m not much of a dancer, but when I stepped off the stairs Saturday night and rolled my left foot, I heard snap, crackle, and pop, clutched my smarting member, and started hopping on the other like a Mexican jumping bean. I knew exactly what had happened. I knew by the sound and the pain. I’d broken my foot. I knew this with as much certainty as if an apostle had said so because I’d done exactly the same thing almost a year to the day before—October 19 last year, October 16 this. … [Read more...]

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Sanity check for publishers

May 10, 2010 By 36 Comments
Detail from Pietà by Carlo Crivelli

In all the discussions about digital publishing, enhanced ebooks, and the future of publishing, let’s not forget that we publish books. We don’t design games, produce movies, or animate features. We publish books. By “books” I do not mean a bunch of printed pages between covers, what is technically known as a codex. That format has been in wide use for the last nineteen hundred years or so. Before that the format of choice was the scroll. Today we have more format options—primarily … [Read more...]

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Sex and food

August 10, 2009 By 3 Comments
Food Network

Read this quote from C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity: "You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act—that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let everyone see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with … [Read more...]

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