At my church, Mosaic Waco, my co-pastor, Slim, and I are preaching through the book of Isaiah. The task is daunting, not merely because of the length of the book, but because the constant word of judgment can often be wearying for the people of God. Yet I am still constantly surprised by the material that I find in the Scriptures, even more so when it matches up so nicely with where my mind has been and will be all... Read more
Since 1987, March has been recognized as Women’s History Month in the United States. Tomorrow, March 8, is recognized as International Women’s Day. Most of us are probably familiar with this at least on some level– advertising campaigns, social media, and news stories highlight the accomplishments of past women leaders or trailblazers, emphasize current issues of inequality or discrimination, and mix celebrating the roles that women have played in our history with calling for a better future, in which women... Read more
We are back with another installment! Last month, I wrote about Eerdman’s Press’ new People Get Ready: Twelve Jesus-Haunted Misfits, Malcontents, and Dreamers in Pursuit of Justice, a collection of theological biographies of prominent figures in American life. We heard about people as varied as Bruce Klunder, Tom Skinner, Rachel Carson, Allan Tibbels, and Mary Paik Lee. This time we have some household names–Flannery O’Connor, Pete Seeger, Toni Morrison–and others–Sarah Patton Boyle, Jack Egan, and Ramon Dagoberto Quinones–virtually unknown. As... Read more
The First Peoples (Natives) viewed their geography as a space of spiritual interconnection between ecology and humanity facilitated by the force they called manitou (spirit). Natives approached their geography from the attitude of interdependence rather than dominance. They migrated seasonally to the resources they depended upon: men going on long hunts and women farming and raising children, while maintaining fisheries along the coast or major rivers. To the Natives, geography was not possessed or owned but sacred and shared by... Read more
The revival at Asbury University has been attracting intense excitement in the evangelical world, and a striking amount of attention in secular media. I myself have nothing new to add to that coverage, so I am delighted to include a personal account of this historic event by a participant and observer, in the guest post that follows. The author is Husezo Rhakho, who presented another guest post at this site last year. He does a terrific job of conveying the... Read more
Over Christmas break, I had the incredible privilege of visiting the Middle East for the first time. I spent a week and a half with family who live in Jordan. (We also spent three days visiting Bethlehem and Jerusalem, which will be the subject of a future post.) I had been abroad before, for decent amounts of time, in England, France, Japan, and Italy. But it had been more years than I am willing to admit publicly in this post.... Read more
A Review of Collin Hansen’s Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation (Zondervan, 2023) In a world of political and cultural polarization, Tim Keller is an enigma who defies easy categorization. He is a northerner raised in mainline Protestantism, yet as a young adult he joined a southern conservative denomination and became its most famous pastor. He is a white evangelical and registered Democrat who has criticized the Christian Right and Christian nationalism in the pages of the New York Times,... Read more
Last month a college student at Indiana University Bloomington was stabbed in the face by a woman who later confessed to police that she had attacked the student because the student is “Chinese.” The assailant explained that she wanted “one less person to blow up our country.” The brazen attack, which occurred on a public bus in the middle of the day, offered a stunning reminder to Asian Americans that they continue to be viewed as threatening foreigners and,... Read more
What stops racial violence? I won’t answer that question fully here (I’ve got a book to write to answer that question), but I want to point to a specific and perhaps complicated historical tactic for reducing this violence, particularly its instantiations in the last century, though obviously there are analogs in the centuries before. This tactic, in many ways, is the basis of a number of other tactics that resist racial violence. The tactic is the shaping of public opinion,... Read more
I just published the book He Will Save You from the Deadly Pestilence: The Many Lives of Psalm 91. Many things make that psalm highly distinctive among Biblical passages, not least the fact that it alone, among scriptural texts, is quoted by Satan himself. But Satan makes an odd mistake, or a fumble, one that has baffled curious commentators through the centuries. I happen to have the solution, and it is one that actually identifies a long arc in the... Read more
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