We now have the work of art that defines our age, just as Michelangelo's David captures the Renaissance. The Italian artist Salvatore Garau has created a sculpture entitled Io Sono, which means "I am." It is invisible; that is to say, there is nothing there. It sold for $18,000.
Research about how parents transmit their faith to their children raises the question: Is religion a matter of belong to a community (that is, a church, with perhaps a larger culture supporting that), or is it a matter of individual conviction and personal identity? Or do they both go together?
America's religious landscape is being reshaped not only by the "Nones," those who have no religious affiliation, but also by the "Nons," "nondenominational" Christians whose congregations are unaffiliated with any theological tradition.
Bailouts, fiscal stimulus, and massive government spending on top of a booming economy have brought back inflation, stirring bad old memories of the Seventies.
Americans have lost faith in the government, business, schools, the media, and the church. What if now they lose faith in science? What is left for them to believe in?
We are told to trust science, follow the science, and make decisions according to science. And, for the most part, we do, as the prestige and authority of science today is paramount. But what if science caused the COVID-19 pandemic? More and more evidence is pointing in that direction.
When we think of Luther's thought as it relates to culture and our life in the world, what comes to mind are his doctrines of vocation and of the Two Kingdoms. But there is a third teaching that is critical in its own terms and in helping us apply the other two: The Doctrine of the Three Estates.
Imagine that James Bond, the dashing spy with a license to kill who keeps saving the world, decides to become a pastor. A Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor, no less. That mashup is basically the premise of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels by Ray Keating.
We've been watching the Sean Connery James Bond movies (streaming free at Pluto and Tubi), which are now over 50 years old, giving them the status of "classics." They illustrate both the bad and the good legacy of the Sixties. And, as movies, they are ridiculously entertaining.
Christians often use "worldview" in confused ways. Lutherans look at the concept differently than the Reformed. But there is a deeper sense in which the Bible really has shaped the way the West views objective reality, time, the value of human life, and other fundamental assumptions.
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