When a book bills itself as a series of “rants and ravings on the Good Book by the Skeptical, the Faithful, and a Few Scoundrels,” I’m primed for some fairly salacious reading. Unfortunately, Disquiet Time–edited by Jennifer Grant and Cathleen Falsani and published recently by Jericho Books–didn’t quite deliver as promised. Sure, some of the contributors swear (gasp!), and one even goes so far as to say the Bible is “full of crap” (not shit?), but overall the writings are pretty... Read more
The quote that forms the title of this post comes from Otto T. Mallery (1881-1956), perhaps best known for his book Economic Union and Durable Peace. It came to my attention recently while listening to Blueprint for Armageddon Part 1 on Dan Carlin’s most excellent Hardcore History podcast. As the quote indicates, countries that are economically interdependent have too much to lose by going to war against their trading partners. Therefore, a globalized economy should be an effective way to reduce wars.... Read more
This rounds out my collection of “young, restless and Reformed” interviewees. Like Justin Taylor, Kevin doesn’t have nearly the name recognition of Mark Driscoll, but he’s certainly more of a “brain trust” in the Reformed world. My conversation with Kevin was uncomfortable and awkward at times. He has called his involvement with the film “interesting,” which is safely ambiguous. At any rate, I think you’ll find this interview very insightful in terms of how people like Kevin make sense of... Read more
Originally, we planned to interview all three of these guys separately, but they insisted on doing it as a group discussion. Unfortunately, we weren’t really equipped for that from a technical point of view (we had only one camera and three mics), but we improvised and, thankfully, were at least able to use snippets of this in the actual film. That said, the audio and video isn’t the greatest in this, but the content is. Paul Young, Baxter Kruger and John... Read more
This is one of several deleted scenes from Hellbound? Many people have advised me never to release this, but to hell with that. The idea for this segment was born over beers and burgers at Prime 16 in New Haven the evening we interviewed Miroslav Volf at Yale. We were on our way to Houston shortly, so we thought we’d stop by the Johnson Space Center for a little bit of fun. Somehow, the tone of this segment never quite... Read more
It’s called The Evil Part of Halloween. But it’s not what you think. As Ben says, There is an evil side to Halloween–one that doesn’t involve fake ghosts or goblins, but a real evil–one that includes slavery, oppression, beatings, broken lives, and destroyed families. That’s right folks, we’re not talking about Satan, we are talking about chocolate. Ben’s post is a good reminder of how difficult it is to consume anything these days without somehow perpetrating an injustice. The... Read more
Continuing with the “young, restless and Reformed” theme, begun with my interview with Mark Driscoll, I bring you my full interview with Justin Taylor. Though not a household name like Driscoll, Justin is an influential blogger at the Gospel Coalition whose pre-emptive post, Rob Bell: Universalist?, which was a response to the book trailer for Love Wins, was largely responsible for putting “Love Wins” on the best-seller list. (John Piper’s “Farewell, Rob Bell” tweet didn’t hurt either. In this interview, which... Read more
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while, but Vimeo has been giving me all sorts of technical grief. At any rate, it’s finally online. It goes for just over an hour, and it features everything you saw in the film and a whole lot more, including a spot where Mark gets a little miffed with me. You can watch the interview here. The PASSWORD is “marshill”. I’m only going to keep it online for a short time. I’ll be... Read more
I’ve received a fair bit of flack over a post I wrote last week that essentially blames the recent “terrorist” attacks in Canada on our foreign policy, namely, our decision to join the coalition launching air strikes against ISIS. I argued that had we chosen to pursue non-violent and humanitarian approaches to ISIS and their victims instead, these violent acts wouldn’t have occurred, because there would be no reason to target us. To bolster this claim, I pointed out that prior to... Read more
The answer isn’t complicated. We are exporting violence right now at a level not seen in some time. Not only are we launching air strikes against ISIS, we are also exporting fighters on the other side. Therefore, it’s only natural that someone would seek to even out the exchange. We aren’t importing terrorists, but we are certainly importing their ideas, and because the Canadian government is also importing ideas and tactics from America, the two recent attacks in Montreal and Ottawa should come as no surprise. But... Read more
Hellbound
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